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Copyright 1913 

By 
P. J. CONLAN 
Boston, Mass. 

All Rights Reserved. 



DEC 27 1913 



(C,.:i.Atf 58903 



A WORD OF INTRODUCTION. 

The following work has been a labor of 
love to the writer, one who has loved Erin 
earnestly and long; and has tried to serve her 
as best he could always, and having now 
reached the evening of life, is most anxious 
to see her free, and dis-enthralled, before the 
night closes in. 

If this little book should lessen her suffer- 
ings, which now, thank heaven, seem about 
to end, or hasten the dawn of liberty, he will 
be amply repaid for any labor it may have 
cost him. He may truly say with Erin's 
well beloved poet, Moore: — 

"With thee were dreams of my earliest love; 

Every thought of my reason was thine; 
In my last humble prayer to the Spirit above 

Thy name shall be mingled with mine! 



PREFACE 

For much of the correspondence in the 
following pages, and for some of the data, I 
am indebted to the Irish World and its late 
lamented editor, Patrick Ford. 

Mr. Ford, by the tremendous fight which 
he has waged on behalf of Ireland for the 
last forty years, has done as much to place 
the Irish cause in its present glorious position 
as any other person, living or dead. 

The Irish race owes his memory undying 
gratitude which I am sure it will repay a 
hundred fold. 



DEDICATION. 

This work is dedicated to all lovers of liber- 
ty the world over; but in a special manner to 
the scattered children of the "sea divided 
Gael," whose undying loyalty to the National 
Ideal: Ireland a Nation, and whose cease- 
less and untiring devotion to Motherland, 
lasting all down the centuries, in good report 
and evil report, has brought us in sight of the 
Promised Land, to the "Threshold of Home 
Rule." 



Page 

Chapter I. How is Old Ireland, 

and How Does She Stand ? 1 

II. The Fight is On 14 

III. The Fight Continued 32 

IV. The Great Derry Victory 47 

V. How it Appears to Outsiders . 61 

VI. Complete Account of the Great Fight. .. . 75 

VII. A New Daniel come to Judgment 85 

VIII. English Taxation in Ireland 95 

IX. English Efforts for an American Alliance. 101 

X. Ireland's Struggle for National Life 115 

XI. Prejudice Injected 128 

XII. Destruction of Irish Industries 141 

XIII. England Destroys the Irish Parliament. . 148 

XIV. Ancient Tenure of Land in Ireland 155 

XV. Irish Services to America 167 

XVI. England's Diplomacy Checkmated 179 

XVII. Ireland an Ancient Nation 188 

XVIII. Ireland the Christianizer and Civilizer. . 196 

XIX. The Dawning of Liberty 202 



Chapter I. 
ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

How is Old Ireland and how does she stand} 

As the dawning of the day of Ireland's 
redemption seems near at hand, the coming 
of Home Rule, the day for which the Irish 
people have hoped and prayed , and for which 
so many of them for long and weary centu- 
ries have suffered and died, in the prison, on 
the scaffold and on the field, it is fitting we 
should ask the old question found at the 
beginning of this chapter: — 

How is Old Ireland and how does she standi 

It is a great, a momentous question , es- 
pecially at this time, when, thank God, the 
light of liberty is already shining on her 
beaming face, so long alas bedewed with tears! 

To-day, it looks indeed as if almost all her 
fondest hopes were soon to be realized; as if 
peace and good will, justice and fair play, 
for the Irish people of every class and creed, 
were about to descend on the dear Old Land, 
and thus enable her to renew her youth, and 
her standing among her sister nations of the 
world. 

At such a time then, with hope beckoning 
us on, lovers of Ireland may well, I repeat, 
ask the old question, so often asked by our 
fathers in the olden days! 



2 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

We Irish exiles can say with Mr Con. 
O'Leary in a recent number of the Irish 
World:— 

"Though he should be thousands of 
miles away from the cradle-land of his 
race, the waves will bear her the message 
of a hungering heart — will bring to us a 
question that was Napper Tandy's ques- 
tion and the question of the generations 
since then. 

"How eager with passionate longing it 
sounds, that cry, ever old, ever new; it is 
inarticulate in the throbbing of the exile's 
heart whenever green fields, turf fires 
and the faces of the old folks throng, 
like risen dead, before his mind's vision. 
It accompanies the snatches of old melo- 
dy that he finds himself humming in mo- 
ments of solitude. It is present with 
him above all in moods of gentle calm; 
in his prayers he sends the question right 
into Heaven, and he teaches the little 
Yankee-Irish who cling around his knees 
to ask the question too. 

"It is the text of every "American 
letter" read aloud at the fireside gather- 
ings in the farmhouses of Ireland. It is 
a question older than Napper Tandy, 
and one that will outlive his memory — a 
question as old as emigration ; yea, as old 
as the English occupation. 

"May we doubt that it was asked on 
the first coffin ship? Was it not asked in 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 3 

the Irish camp before Fontenoy? Two 
rival armies united in asking it in the 
American Civil War. It comes to chil- 
dren of exiles with the dawning of reason, 
and it will be blent with their dying 
prayers. 

"Prisoner O' Meagher Condon, when the 
hangman's fatal rope dangled before you, 
and you uttered your passionate prayer, 
undaunted by the frown of an alien judge 
whose fingers clutched at the cap of 
death, you little thought that you were 
bequeathing to your people an immor- 
tal anthem of liberty. 

"And brave Tandy, when you took an 
obscure poet by the hand, had you any 
inkling at all that the sobbing words you 
uttered would live forever on the mouths 
of your countrymen and keep your mem- 
ory greener than gravestone or monu- 
ment. 

"A question this that springs from a 
hundred questions, the postcript to our 
history, and the beginning of our cate- 
chism of nationality, and the passport 
to our destined future. 

"Cry, ever old, ever new, question asked 
at the rising and setting of the sun, ques- 
tion confronting 1913 on the threshold of 
her new tenancy : 

"How is poor Old Ireland and how does 
she stand?" 

"Parliament has risen for a brief Christ- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

mas vacation of ten days, and there is a 
temporary lull in the war-bustle that for 
many months has centered round the 
future fate of Ireland. We may take 
advantage of the breathing-space to at- 
tempt an answer to the favorite question 
of our race. Where has the past year 
brought Ireland or left her? Does she 
still stand unmoved above the sea? What 
does the new year hide as it peeps through 
the haze of futurity — is sunshine or sor- 
row to be her destiny? 

"But undying hope was always the 
beacon on the hill, and time after time 
she rose triumphant over despair, over 
what seemed inexorable fate. 

"And so it is that if today our outlook 
were not laden with the ripe fruit of 
promise, and the skies above our island 
were fringed with leaden tints, she would 
nevertheless be big with hope and secure 
in the belief that the dawn of her destiny 
only awaited the bursting forth of the 
sun of victory, which lay hidden some- 
where behind the dark canopy. But hap- 
pily, victory and pride are her hand- 
maidens today. 

"In the year now dying she has passed 
the novitiate to her freedom, in the year 
coming to birth, 1914, the great work of 
emancipation will be completed. Wherever 
we look about our fields, the eyes seem 
to catch the first unfolding of an eternal 
springtime of which God Himself has 
been the gardener. 




JOHN E. REDMOND, M. P. 
Leader Irish Party. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 5 

"The music of freedom is singing in our 
hearts, the hightide of victory is swelling 
in our souls. What hope, what strength, 
what destiny lie behind the great op- 
timism of the nation. Only a little time 
and the land shall rise, smiling in her 
freedom, to take her place as a respected 
rival in the comity of nations. 

"1912 was a remarkable year in the 
history of the Home Rule movement. 
It saw the introduction of the third 
Home Rule Bill, the fullest, most gener- 
ous and most comprehensive measure of 
Irish amelioration ever sponsored by a 
British ministry. 

"In spite of an opposition of unprece- 
dented violence and malignity it passed 
its second reading by a majority of over 
a hundred, and clause by clause on the 
committee stage the Government forces 
fought and conquered. 

"The truth is that Home Rule has made 
a real appeal to the reason and conscience 
of the English democracy and in support 
of the Government proposals they are 
convinced, unanimous and enthusiastic." 



Dear intensely Irish and patriotic Fanny 
Parnell , how she longed and hoped and prayed 
to see this day, and died broken hearted 
because she didn't see it, as the reader may 
judge by the following exquisite poem, written 
by her a short time before her death. 



6 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

POST MORTEM 

(By Fannie Parnell.) 

Shall mine eyes behold thy glory, O my country? 

Shall mine eyes behold thy glory? 
Or shall the darkness close around them, ere the sun- 
blaze 

Break at last upon thy story? 

When the nations ope for thee their queenly circle, 

As a sweet new sister hail thee, 
Shall these lips be sealed in callous death and silence 

That have known but to bewail thee? 

Shall the ear be deaf that only loved thy praises 
When all men their tribute bring thee? 

Shall the mouth be clay that sang thee in thy squalor 
When all poets' mouths shall sing thee? 

Ah! the harpings and the salvos and the shoutings 

Of thy exiled sons returning 
I should hear, though dead and moldered, and the 
grave damps 

Should not chill my bosom's burning. 

Ah! the tramp of feet victorious! I should hear them 

'Mid the shamrocks and the mosses, 
And my heart should toss within the shroud and quiver 

As a captive dreamer tosses. 

I should turn and rend the cere clothes 'round me, 

Giant-sinews I should borrow, 
Crying, "O my brothers I have also loved her, 

In her lowliness and sorrow. 

"Let me join with you the jubilant procession, 

Let me chant with you her story; 
Then contented I shall go back to the shamrocks 

Now mine eyes have seen her glory." 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 7 

In the presence of the glorious army of 
Irish Protestants, who have for centuries 
fought and died to make Ireland a Nation, 
of whom Fanny Parnell was not the least, 
how mean, how despicable, is the contention 
of the little Orange faction of Ulster, who 
claim that under Home Rule the Irish 
Catholics would be unjust to, and persecute 
their friends and neighbors of the Protestant 
faith! 

Not only was Miss Parnell herself a Prot- 
estant, but her whole family, including, of 
course her famous, brother, the late Charles 
Stewart Parnell, the one time leader of the 
Irish National Party. 

As every intelligent student of Irish his- 
tory knows, a very large proportion of Ire- 
land's heroic and martyred dead for two 
centuries or more were Protestants, includ- 
ing Emmet, Wolf Tone, Curran, Lord Ed- 
ward Fitzgerald, Grattan, John Mitchell, 
William Smith O'Brien, and so on, almost 
without end. 

These men had no fear that Home Rule 
for their motherland would bring ruin to 
them and all they held dear! 

Thomas Davis, one of Ireland's most patriot- 
ic sons, though a non-Catholic, had no thought 
of, or fear of persecution, or ill treatment, 
when he penned his stirring and immortal 
poem "Our Own Again." 



8 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

OUR OWN AGAIN. 

(By Thomas Davis.) 

Let the coward shrink aside. 

We'll have our own again; 
Let the brawling slave deride, 

Here's for our own again — 
Let the tyrant bribe and lie, 
March, threaten, fortify. 
Loose his lawyer and his spy, 

Yet we'll have our own again. 
Let him soothe in silken tone, 
Scold from a foreign throne; 
Let him come with bugles blown, 

We shall have our own again, 
Let us to our purpose bide, 

We'll have our own again — 
Let the game be fairly tried, 

We'll have our own again. 

Send the cry throughout the land, 

"Who's for our own again?" 
Summon all men to our band, 

Why not our own again? 
Rich and poor, and old, and young, 
Sharpsword, and fiery tongue — 
Soul and sinew firmly strung, 

All to get our own again. 
Brothers thrive by brotherhood — 
Trees in a stormy wood — 
Riches come from Nationhood — 

Shan't we have our own again? 
Munster's woe is Ulster's bane! 

Join for our own again — 
Tyrants rob, as well as reign, 

We'll have our own again. 

Oft our father's hearts it stirr'd, 

"Rise for your own again!" 
Often pass'd the signal word, 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 9 

"Strike for your own again!" 
Rudely, rashly, and untaught, 
Uprose they, ere they ought. 
Failing, though they nobly fought, 

Dying for their own again. 
Mind will rule and music yield, 
In senate, ship and field — 
When we've our strength to wield, 

Let us take our own again. 
By the slave, his chain is wrought, 

Strive for our own again. 
Thunder is less strong than thought, 

We'll have our own again. 

Calm as granite to our foes, 

Stand for our own again, 
Till his wrath to madness grows — 

Firm for our own again. 
Bravely hope, and wisely wait, 
Toil, join, and educate: 
Man is master of his fate; 

We'll enjoy our own again. 
With a keen constrained thirst — 
Powder's calm ere it burst — 
Making ready for the worst, 

So we'll get our own again. 
Let us to our purpose bide, 

We'll have our own again, 
God is on the righteous side, 

We'll have our own again. 

The pretended fear of Catholic intolerance 
by the Tories and especially by the Orange- 
men of Ulster, is so absurd as to be ridicu- 
lous especially when we recall the fact, so 
well known to all honest students of history, 
namely, that the Irish Catholic people have 
never been known, in all their checkered 
career, to persecute for conscience sake; never 



10 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

once; and all writers on Irish history, Protest- 
ants, as well as Catholics, bear cheerful testi- 
mony to that fact, Leckie, the Irish Protes- 
tant writer, among them. 

Besides nearly all that great body of Irish- 
men who at the head of the patriot Volunteer 
Army of 100,000 men, who wrung from Great 
Britain, in 1782, the restoration of Ireland's 
native Parliament, and who during the life 
of said parliament made Ireland great and 
prosperous were almost to a man Protestants: 
as were nine tenths of the Volunteers! 

As the Catholics possessed no civic rights 
at the time and could not of course bear 
arms, they could only aid the patriotic move- 
ment with such means as lay within their 
reach, sympathy and material aid, and these 
they gave lavishly, according to their means. 

At the beginning of the Volunteer move- 
ment, the Catholics were rigidly excluded 
from their ranks, but as the people became 
more and more aroused, a broader spirit of 
tolerance, justice and patriotism took posses- 
sion of them, and this gradually extended to 
the Volunteers themselves, so much so that 
in a short time, between 1787 and 1780, we 
find them at their different conventions 
passing resolutions of sympathy for Catholics: 
and in some instances demanding their rights! 

About this time Catholics were, here and 
there, gradually admitted into the ranks, but 
always grudgingly and jealously. Irish Cath- 
olics being naturally of a warlike race, as 
soon as they were at liberty to do so, threw 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 1 1 

themselves into the Volunteer movement 
with all the ardor of a long suffering people, 
a people who were now, after such long and 
awful oppression, about to get a glimpse of 
the promised land. 

It was only a very short glimpse however, 
for in a few years the Volunteers began to 
return to their long inherited spirit of in- 
tolerance and hatred, and again shut out 
the Catholics. 

By this act the Volunteers signed their own 
death warrant, and in a very few short years 
nothing remained of this one time splendid 
body of soldiers, a body that had been the 
pride and the glory as well as the hope of 
Ireland, Protestants and Catholics, but a 
memory! And with them departed, in less 
than twenty years, the Parliament they had 
been the chief means of establishing. 

England, quick to see that the exclusion of 
the Catholics from among the Volunteers had 
prepared the ground for her old and long 
used policy of sowing dissension among the 
people, proceeded to do so at once; and its 
first fruit was the overthrow of the Volun- 
teers themselves, and without the firing of a 
gun! 

The Catholics were not as yet citizens, and 
in the words of John Mitchell, Irish historian 
and patriot, "if Catholics were permitted to 
breathe in Ireland, it was by connivance; 
and against the law! Plunged in poverty, 
and ignorance; barred from all education, 
both at home, and abroad ; a price set on the 



12 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

head of the priest and the schoolmaster; 
despoiled of arms, rank and votes; excluded 
from all offices, high and low; shut out from 
the professions; unable to own land, or hold 
mortgages, their condition was indeed a pitia- 
ble one; so dreadful that a distinguished 
writer says it was worse than that of the 
early Christians during the ten persecutions 
of the pagan Roman emperors! 

And yet they had an instinctive feeling 
that the independence of their country, even 
when gained by the agency of the English 
colonists among them, who had been their 
bitterest oppressors — backed up always by 
the might of England — meant their own 
emancipation, sooner or later. 

Perhaps one of the most generous acts of 
forgiveness of injuries to be found in the 
history of nations, and the return of good for 
evil, is the incident told of the Catholics of 
Limerick about this time. Being refused ad- 
mission to the ranks of the Volunteers, they, 
to show their intense practical sympathy and 
interest with the movement, subscribed four 
thousand dollars for the Volunteer treasury. 

Notwithstanding the terribly fierce and 
bitter opposition to home Rule by the Orange- 
men and a comparatively small number of 
factionists and office holders in the northeast 
corner of Ulster, it can truly be said of Ulster, 
as a whole, that she is the mother of an army 
of Irish patriots and martyrs, and a very 
large number of them Protestants, men and 
women, who gave up everything that people 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE IS 

value, life itself in many cases, for Ireland. 
If further proof of the broad and tolerant 
spirit of the Catholic Irish were needed, it is 
found in the fact that of the 85 nationalist 
members of the British parliament, 8 are 
non-Catholics, and all chosen by Catholic 
constituents! 

They talk of intolerance ! Here is a sample 
not of Catholic intolerance however, but 
of Protestant intolerance, and in the North 
East corner, in Belfast! 

"From the salary lists of public boards 
in Belfast, Catholics are rigidly excluded, 
and 983^ per cent of all salaries go to 
Protestants. The following are the figures 
for 1911: 

"Board of Guardians, out of $83,950 
salaries, Catholics get $3,400. 

"Harbor Board, out of $56,345 salaries, 
Catholics get $1,250. 

"Water Board, out of $26,980 salaries, 
Catholics get $325. 

"Corporation, out of $343,615 salaries 
Catholics get $3,840. 

"And among the twenty-five doctors 
employed by the City Council there is 
not one Catholic." 

And these are people who preach about 
"Catholic intolerance" in Ireland and 
pretend to fear "Catholic persecution" 
under Home Rule. 



Chapter II 
THE FIGHT IS ON. 

After months of bitter and tumultuous 
debate, of charges and counter charges and 
of threatened rebellion, often repeated by the 
Unionists, but especially by the Orange por- 
tion of the party, the Home Rule Bill was 
passed in the House of Commons, January 16, 
1913, and by the great majority of 110! As 
the total Irish National vote is but 85, and 
on this occasion, owing to sickness and death, 
only 82 were able to vote, it is evident the 
bill would have had a majority of nearly 
thirty votes, made up, of course, of English, 
Scotch, and Welsh votes, even if none of the 
Irish had voted! 

It was an epoch marking occasion; one of 
the great historic days that will stand out for 
all time, especially in Irish and English 
annals! 

The English Prime Minister seemed to 
fully realize that fact, and as a consequence 
he spoke, not to the Commons only, but to 
the world ! Here I give a brief summary of 
the great speech, as I find it in the columns 
of the Irish World: — 

"The deep feeling that ran like a strong 
current through his speech emphasized 
the fact that the emancipation of Ireland 
has become the master passion in As- 
quith's life. 

14 



on the threshold of home rule 15 

"Parnell's Deathless Words." 

"He pointed out that Balfour misin- 
terpreted Irish history when he thought 
that the terminus from which discussion 
should be begun was the Act of Union, 
as if before then there was no such thing 
at all as Ireland. The Irish question 
stretched far behind the Act of Union, 
and was the direct sequel of the old story 
of conquest and reconquest, of planta- 
tion, of devastation and expropriation. 
"The Irish National movement," declared 
the honorable gentleman, "has passed 
from the stage of sentiment and of aspir- 
ation and of abortive thought into what 
it is today — an organized, practical, in- 
evitable reality — the reality which has 
confronted us ever since we enfranchised 
the democracy of Ireland thirty years 
ago, and which confronted our pre- 
decessors, and which we cannot ignore. 
"If you were to reject this Bill you 
would find still standing in your path 
what is and remains with undiminished 
vitality the organized, articulate and per- 
manent expression of the political de- 
mands of the vast majority of the Irish 
people. In face of these demands, 
persisted in through the lifetime of a 
whole generation with unwavering 
strength and power, what are you going; 
to do?" Asquith courageously quoted 
the deathless words of Parnell: "No man 



16 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

has a right to set bounds to the march 
of a nation." 

"ASQUITH AND ULSTER'S DISCONTENT." 

"Defending the retention of forty-two 
members at Westminster after Home 
Rule is granted, Asquith remarked that 
the exclusion of the Irish members 
by Gladstone was the rock on which the 
Home Rule Bill of 1886 foundered. With 
regard to the discontent in Ulster, he in- 
sisted that to allow a minority of the 
Irish people to over-ride a majority would 
be to make democratic government im- 
possible. 

"Referring to Balfour's predictions that 
evils would flow from the grant of Self- 
Government to Ireland, the Prime Minis- 
ter, recalled hearing Balfour predict, with 
equal confidence and in equally lurid Ian 
guage, the consequences that would fol- 
low from what the Tory leader then des- 
cribed as the most reckless experiment 
that political folly ever conceived, namely 
the grant of Self -Government to the 
Transvaal ! 

"The Spell of a Malignant Curse." 

"His peroration was a passionate ap- 
peal for the closing of the long-standing 
quarrel between Ireland and Great Brit- 
ain. "It is no use now," said the Premier, 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 17 

"to analyze the shortcomings of the past, 
or to attempt exactly to apportion, as 
though you were weighing it in a balance, 
the burden of blame on both sides, Not 
only upon one side, but upon both sides, 
bitter words have been spoken, bad things 
have been done. 

"What has seemed almost from the 
first an unkindly fate has brooded over 
these two islands to frustrate their com- 
mon life and to sever their natural unity. 
Time after time, when they were coming 
together, the web which seemed about to 
be woven of reciprocal interests and affec- 
tions has been unraveled and torn asunder 
as though under the spell of some malig- 
nant curse. Let it be our part to ex- 
orcise once and for all these baneful in- 
fluences, and to join two peoples meant 
to be one, whom the chances of history, 
the seeming caprice of fortune, and the 
follies and passions of men have kept 
apart, in a fruitful and endearing union." 

It is needless to add that the speech of 
John Redmond, the distinguished leader of 
the Nationalist party, was as worthy of him 
as of the cause which he so gloriously repre- 
sents, and of the occasion. The following are 
a few extracts from his memorable speech 
on that occasion: — 

MR. REDMOND'S SPEECH. 

"Undoubtedly the speech of the debate 



18 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

was that of John Redmond. He spoke 
under the influence of strong emotion, 
and the solemn beauty of his peroration 
affected his audience like glorious music 
swelling forth from an organ in some 
majestic Cathedral. 

He declared that there was not a 
people or a country in the whole civilized 
world that would not welcome as glad 
tidings of great joy the announcement 
that the British nation had been magnan- 
imous enough and brave enough and 
wise enough to undo an old national 
wrong. He made special reference to the 
desire with which this measure was a- 
waited by the Irish in America, who 
believed they were driven out of their own 
country by misgovernment and oppres- 
sion, and who had cherished in their 
hearts an admitted hostility to the British 
Empire, and the present Bill might go 
far to reconcile them. 

"In the words of Mr. Gladstone, "the 
long period of time has once more run 
out, and the star of Ireland is mounting 
the heavens." An extraordinary scene 
of enthusiasm took place on the announce- 
ment of the figures, cheers being given for 
Asquith, Redmond and Parnell. When 
at length the demonstration subsided, 
the distant sound of cheering was heard — 
it was the London Irish, half delirious with 
joy, cheering the rending of their fetters. 

Mr. Redmond reiterated what he had 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 19 

stated during the debate on the First 
Reading of the Bill, namely, that 
the Nationalists accepted the Bill. He 
thought it would lead to the reconciliation 
of all the interests at stake, between the 
North and the South of Ireland. He 
declared that the Nationalists refused to 
regard Ulstermen as anything but bro- 
thers, and invited them to join with the 
Nationalists in the emancipation and the 
government of their common country. 
He went on: 

"I believe that in spite of the House of 
Lords the Home Rule Bill is going to 
pass into law within the lifetime of this 
Parliament. The House of Lords, we 
know, is going to throw it out, but, al- 
though the Lords still have teeth, they 
cannot bite. 

"For my colleagues and myself this 
is a very serious and solemn moment. 
Many of us have sat in this House with 
one single object in view for more than 
thirty years. We have met with dis- 
aster, defeat and discouragement, but 
never, even when faced with the tragedy 
and the loss of our great and incomparable 
leader, Parnell, did we despair of the 
arrival of this day." 

"The Long Fight Nearly Ended." 

"Then Mr Redmond indulged in a 
retrospect of modern Irish history, with 



20 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

its discouragements, its gleams of victory, 
its tragedies and its baffled hopes. Four 
generations of his own family, he said, 
had been sent to the House of Commons 
to fight for Ireland's rights, and now the 
end of the long struggle was in view. Cen- 
tred in the Bill were the hopes and aspir- 
ations not only of the Irish in Ireland, 
but the hopes of millions of Irishmen in 
every part of the United States. His 
reference to the millions of the Irish 
race in America who were driven out by 
misgovernment at home and were hostile 
to the British, was loudly cheered. 

"I believe, he continued, "there is not 
a people or a country in the civilized 
world which will not welcome as glad 
tidings of great joy the announcement 
that the British Nation has at last un- 
done an old National wrong. In the 
words of the late William E. Gladstone, 
'the tide has once more run out and the 
star of Ireland has mounted in the heav- 
ens.' 

"This peroration was received with a 
sustained roar of applause, which was 
none the less fervent for the adroit in- 
sertion of the name of Gladstone in its 
concluding sentences." 

"A Union of all Classes and Creeds." 

"Although the financial provisions of 
the Bill are less liberal than expected, 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 21 

they have come automatically to an end, 
and there will be no opportunity of 
revising them. We oppose the exclusion 
of Ulster from the Home Rule Bill on 
several grounds but the supreme ob- 
jection is that nothing would compensate 
the Nationalists for the mutilation of 
their country. The Nationalists refuse 
to regard Ulstermen as anything but 
brothers and I invite them to join with 
the Nationalists in the emancipation and 
the government of their common country. ' ' 

Perhaps the importance of Ireland's great 
victory will be better understood and appre- 
ciated from the following article in a recent 
number of the Irish World: — 

The majority of one hundred and ten 
for the Home Rule Bill has a significance 
which will be better understood by com- 
paring it with the votes given for the 
two previous Home Rule measures. In 
1886 Mr. Gladstone's first attempt at 
securing an instalment of justice for 
Ireland was defeated by a majority of 30. 
Seven years later, in 1893, he made a 
second effort which was more successful, 
so far as the House of Commons was con- 
cerned. In that year the House of 
Commons, by a majority of 34, declared 
that Ireland should be invested with the 
right of managing her own affairs. 

That is the condensed history of the 



22 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

two previous Bills. From a minority 
to a majority vote of 34 showed the rising 
tide in favor of Home Rule twenty years 
ago. It is still mounting, as is demonstra- 
ted by the increasing vote at the different 
stages of the Bill just passed in the House 
of Commons. When it was first in- 
troduced last Spring, it had a majority 
of 94, which was increased to 100 on 
the Second Reading. The 110 majority 
on the Third Reading, carries with it a 
notification to the Orangemen of Ulster 
that their threats have not frightened 
the parliamentary representatives of the 
British democracy." 

As the Home Rule Bill is one of the greatest 
measures that has ever been enacted by any 
legislative body, and one of the most far 
reaching for peace and good will, not only 
between Great Britain and Ireland, but for 
the lasting peace of the world, the reader will 
pardon me if I dwell upon it at some length. 

As the Irish and English peoples are scatter- 
ed all over the globe , and their relations to 
each other are constantly being embittered 
by the long standing enmities between the 
two countries, this measure, if enacted into 
law, and it looks almost like a certainty just 
now, will wipe out old scores and bring the 
two peoples together as friends and fellow- 
workers for the welfare of all. 

Such being the case then, I here present an 
able account of the scenes and incidents on 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 23 

the passage of the bill in the House of Commons 
from a staff correspondent of the Irish World, 
Mr Con O'Leary, from whose correspondence 
I have treely copied. 

HOME RULE PASSED ON THIRD 
READING. 

''House Of Commons Sends it With a 
Majority Of 110 To the House Of Lords. 
Tories and Unionists Dumbfounded At 
the Large Vote.— John Redmond Thanks 
Irish-America For Its Help In Carrying 
the Fight To a Successful Issue.— Bonar 
Law Declares Ulster Will Never Recog- 
nize the Measure." 



"London, Jan. 17.— Amidst scenes of 
fervid joy on the part of the members 
of the Irish Party, shared in with hardly 
less enthusiasm by the members of the 
Liberal and Labor Parties, and the Welsh 
and Scotch members, the third Home 
Rule Bill to be introduced in the House 
of Commons, and the second to pass 
that assembly, was passed by a vote of 
367 to 257 — a majority of 110. The 
majority consisted of 248 Liberals, 82 
Irish Nationalists, and 37 Labor members 

"An Impressive Scene." 

"When the figures were announced the 



24 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

Nationalists, Labor and Liberal members 
arose and waving their hats and hand- 
kerchiefs, cheered Premier Asquith, John 
E. Redmond and the various Cabinet 
Ministers. Mr. Redmond, who is usual- 
ly passive, was carried away by the great 
enthusiasm of his friends and entered 
into the spirit of the demonstration as 
effusively as they. Those who crowded 
the lobbies received the figures with 
another roar of welcome. 

"Robert Cameron, Liberal member from 
Durham, who was in favor of the meas- 
ure, insisted upon being brought from 
a sick bed to support the Bill, and was 
carried into the lobby. Edward J. 
Kelly, Irish Nationalist, left the Dublin 
Hospital and traveled to London attend- 
ed only by a nurse. The only Nation- 
alist absentee in the final voting was 
Joseph Patrick Nannetti, member for 
the College Green Division of Dublin. 
He was absent because he was stricken 
with paralysis while preparing to start 
for London. 

"The passage of the Bill was the climax 
of fifty-two days' debate in the House of 
Commons, and for the eventful occasion 
every possible vote of every Party had 
been whipped up. No sooner had the 
result been announced than the Orange 
members resumed their "Will-Fight" tac- 
tics. Frederick E. Smith, the Orange 
firebrand from Liverpool, gave away the 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 25 

whole case against the Bill. "If it were 
possible," he said, "to have a concilia- 
tion conference nobody would be better 
pleased than I." 

"Firebrand Smith Has His Say." 

"The Orange leader covered this up by 
a lurid picture of ' the possible shooting 
of a hundred Orangemen by British troops 
with a thousand to take their place. 
But even the Tory Party was not res- 
ponsive to such clap-trap oratory. Soon 
after Mr. Smith left the House of Com- 
mons, and at the head of a motley crowd 
marched to the Constitutional Club, the 
Unionists headquarters, where from an 
open window he said that the outcome 
would not be decided in the House of 
Commons, but in the streets of Belfast. 
To give light to the occasion, one of the 
members of the Club set fire to a copy 
of the Home Rule Bill. 

"At the National Liberal Club several 
thousand members appeared, and affect- 
ing scenes were witnessed. It was here 
that the Irish leader, flushed with the 
heat of victory, made his way, support- 
ed by many Liberal, Irish and Labor 
members. He spoke gratefully of the 
assistance received from the Irish race 
in the United States and Canada, which, 
he said, had greatly helped him and the 
Irish Party to carry the fight to a sue- 



26 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

cessful issue, remarking: "It is a proud 
day for them." 

"Mr. Redmond's Thanks." 

"Later Mr. Redmond gave out the 
following statement: 

"On behalf of the Irish Party and the 
Irish people, I tender to the Liberal and 
Labor Parties, to the Scottish and Welsh 
members and to their supporters, both 
in and out of Parliament, our gratitude 
for the fidelity with which they have 
championed to victory the cause of jus- 
tice to Ireland. The passage of the Bill 
into a law is assured, and the effect of its 
operation in Ireland will be not only to 
inaugurate a new era of peace and pros- 
perity, but to weld together Irishmen of 
every class and every creed in an in- 
dissoluble bond of brotherhood and of 
affection, for the promotion of the wel- 
fare and happiness of their Motherland. 
The granting of Home Rule will be hailed 
with enthusiasm by the friends of justice 
and of liberty, in every sovereign State 
in the world." 

"Soon after the vote was taken, the Bill, 
tied up with green ribbons, and escorted 
by a delegation of Nationalist members, 
who were loudly cheered in crossing the 
lobby from the House of Commons to 
the House of Lords, was sent to the latter 
House, which had specially met to receive 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 27 

the Bill. Here it formally passed its 
First Reading. 

"The Tories were dumbfounded and all 
Parties were surprised at the large major- 
ity for the Bill, it being six larger than 
the normal Government majority, allow- 
ing for vacant seats. They were astonished, 
too, at the good order of the members, 
for violent demonstrations were expected 
and at the depressed speeches of Bonar 
Law and the Unionist leaders, who gave 
the impression of realizing that their 
game is up and of being ready to begin 
angling for any compromise to save the 
Orange face." 

Home Rule being as already stated a matter 
of intense interest to the world at large, as 
well as to the Irish people at home and abroad, 
the reader will excuse the giving of some ex- 
tended press notices of the passage of the Bill. 

These will show how it is regarded by 
other than the Irish people and I need make 
no apology to my readers for these many 
extracts from the Irish World and other 
sources because they are so pertinent and 
cover the various phases of the subject so 
thoroughly they leave nothing more to be 
said. 

The following from the N. Y . Globe is a 
fair sample of American opinion: 

"The most significant thing in connec- 



28 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

tionwith the passage of the Home Rule 
Bill is that it would have passed if the 
Irish members had not participated in 
the division. The vote was 367 for the 
Bill and 257 against. On the affirmative 
side were 82 Irish Nationalists and on the 
negative side were 20 other members from 
Ireland. Home Rule thus had the sup- 
port of 265 non- Irish members of Par- 
liament and was opposed by 257 non- 
Irish members. It has a majority of 
the representatives of England, Scot- 
land, and Wales as well as of Ireland 

The Tory Campaign of Abuse. 

The Conservatives, as so often happens 
when a Tory Party finds that it is beaten, 
kept up their campaign of abuse and of 
incitement to disorder. Bonar Law prac- 
tically invited Belfast and Ulster to rise 
in armed rebellion. Many an Irishman 
has languished in prison for saying things 
less incendiary than came from the lips 
of leading members of the opposition. 
But the violent screaming and threatening 
by scions of the aristocracy availed 
nothing. Democracy was in the saddle 
and would not be diverted from a meas- 
ure of Democratic justice. 

"You are told," said Gladstone in one 
of his Midlothian speeches, "that edu- 
cation, that enlightenment, that leisure, 
that high station, that political experience 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 29 

are arrayed in the opposing camp and I 
am sorry to say I cannot deny it. I 
painfully reflect that in almost every one, 
if not in every one, of the greatest politi- 
cal controversies of the last fifty years, 
whether they affected the franchise wheth- 
er they affected commerce, whether they 
affected the abominable institution of 
slavery, or what subject they touched, 
these educated classes, these wealthy 
classes, these titled classes, have been 
in the wrong. 

"So it will be shown again with respect 
to Home Rule. An Irish Parliament 
will not be an instrument of perfect 
wisdom. The world is not able to get 
such. But it is based on the sound and 
enduring principle of the right of Self- 
Government." 



As the Irish World so well says : — 

"Outside the ranks of the Orange fac- 
tion in Ulster and of their Tory allies 
in Great Britain, there is not a word of 
adverse criticism. The good wishes of 
mankind are enlisted on the side of 
Ireland; against her are arrayed the 
bigotry of Orange lodges and the stupid- 
ity of Great Britain's hereditary legis- 
lators in the House of Lords. The con- 
joined forces of insensate bigotry and 
blind stupidity will not carry the day. 



30 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

They are engaged in a losing fight. They 
cannot block the march of progress. Our 
Motherland cannot be turned back on 
the path on which she has set her feet. 
In this her hour of triumph, which pre- 
sages a greater triumph in the near future, 
her children in this and other lands send 
her their heartfelt greetings. All hail 
to her! 

"It is just thirty- two years since Wen- 
dell Phillips wrote, at a time when Irish 
jails were crammed with Irish patriots: 
'Ireland today leads the van in the 
struggle for right, justice and freedom. 
England has forfeited her right to rule, 
if she ever had any, by a three hundred 
years' exhibition of her unfitness and in- 
ability to do so. The failure is confessed 
by all her statesmen of both parties for 
the last three hundred years. Discontent, 
poverty, famine, and death are her 
accusers.' Such was the terrible in- 
dictment of English rule in Ireland, 
framed in 1881 by one whose nobility 
of soul endowed him with that clearness 
of vision which penetrates outward shows 
and gets at the heart of things. It was 
that gift which enabled Wendell Phillips 
to make this prediction, now verified, in 
seemingly the darkest hour when Parnell, 
Davitt and the other Irish leaders were 
behind prison bars like common felons." 



In the words of Mr. Samuel Young, an 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 31 

Irish Protestant Nationalist Member of Par- 
liamant, from Ulster, the real opposition to 
Home Rule Bill, comes from: — 

'The ascendant minority making their 
last effort to retain place and power in 
Ireland. 

"That is the whole thing in a nutshell — 
Orange Ascendancy wants to hold on to 
place and power, and Home Rule it 
knows will stop all that and give all 
Irishmen a square deal. Against this 
there is an impudent Orange Ascendancy 
"argument" noted by Mr. Young: "The 
Irish people fought for civil and religious 
liberty from 1800 to 1829, and he saw the 
tar barrels on the hills when the Act 
(Emancipation Act) was passed in 1829. 
They fought for the Commutation of 
the Tithe Act in 1836, and they also 
fought in 1869 for Disestablishment which 
is now to be copied in Wales. They fought 
the land law question in 1878, 1881, 1886, 
and in 1903, yet to be copied by Great 
Britain, and now they are to experi- 
ment in proportional representation in 
the formation of their Senate in Dublin. 
These were the people who were unfit to 
manage their own affairs." 



Chapter III. 

FIGHT CONTINUED 

In Mr. Justin McCarthy's account of the 
introduction of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule 
Bill, in 1893, there is a beautiful reverie, in 
which he brings on the stage a host of Ire- 
land's patriots and martyrs, all of whom 
suffered, and many of whom died to make 
her a nation : — 

"The Irish benches were crowded with my 
enthusiastic colleagues rallying in ex- 
ultation around the chosen leader of their 
country and their cause faded — so it 
seemed to my reverie — from my sight, 
and in their room a legion of mighty and 
mournful phantoms presented themselves 
to me. Phantoms of many epochs 
and of many ages rose in a great cloud 
together, and my vision following the 
lines of their dim ranks caught here and 
there with the feverish rapidity of a 
dream, well-known and venerated coun- 
tenances dear beyond all phrase to Irish 
memories. 
"The white-haired, blind, old man, whose 
stalwart frame was bowed by sorrow, 
and whose sightless gaze had in it such 
a wistful pathos, was not the exiled 
Earl whose grave in Roman earth is now 
the shrine of so many pilgrimages? Near 
him, his soldier's face writhed with pain 

32 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 33 

or poison, came the great kinsman of his 
house, Owen Roe. Sarsfield, with the 
blood of Landen on his breast and hand: 
Talbot of Tyrconnell's weary, haughty 
face; Roger Moore, handsome, chivalrous, 
devoted; William Molyneux, with the 
"Case of Ireland" in his grasp; the small 
fervid figure of the Dean of St. Patrick's 
with "fierce indignation" blazing in his 
wild, dark eyes; Lucas, with his volume 
clasped in his embrace; the gallant bear- 
ing of Charlemont; Grattan, in the uni- 
form of the Volunteers; Flood, restless 
and repentant; Curran, swaying with 
stormy eloquence — these and many others 
floated before me in proud succession. 

"With them were yet livelier and loftier 
presences; Edward Fitzgerald, his comely 
body gashed with more scars than Cae- 
sar, and by baser hands; Tone, with 
that grim wound in his throat; Bagenal 
Harvey and Father John; the Brothers 
Sheares in death as in life undivided; 
and Emmet, with the livid circle round 
his young neck. On they came, the long 
line of martyrs who had died to defeat 
the fatal principles which the Act of 
Union formulated, and who seemed now 
to rise from their graves at the sound of 
the knell of that principle." 

''All this ghostly army, multiplying in 
bewildering rapidity, swayed and floated 
silently forward, their pale faces shining 
with wild emotions of hope and exulta- 



34 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

tion and hate. Then a great cry rose 
up, a fierce, tumultuous yell of triumph 
and salutation ; the grey hosts seemed to 
shudder at the sound, and swiftly vanish- 
ed as the clamor rose, to their place of 
shades. St. Stephen's was itself again, 
and the assembled, living, breathing mul- 
titude were — the majority of them — 
cheering themselves hoarse in welcome 
of Mr. Gladstone, who had just risen 
to his feet. 

"As I listened to the orator, and heard 
the impassioned words in which an 
English Minister, for the first time in the 
face of all the world, recognized the 
rights of the Irish people, I felt that, in- 
deed, the mighty dead might well be 
content with that day's work, and 
might, indeed, if it were permitted to 
them, quit their resting-places to share 
in the triumphs of a day which marks 
an epoch in Irish history — an epoch which 
seems as if it were destined to end the 
old evil order of repression and revolu- 
tion and open the new order of freedom 
and of hope. 



In connection with alleged fear of perse- 
cution by the Orangemen, and to which 
I have referred at length in another part of 
this work, I may here state that more than 
one half of these martyrs of Irish liberty 
mentioned in Mr. McCarthy's Reverie were 
Protestants ! 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 35 

It is true, the Lords rejected the bill after 
only four days debate, and by a vote of 326 
to 69! 

Although the majority is large, it is 121 
less than they gave against the Gladstone 
Home Rule Bill in 1893; and their vote for 
the bill, on the present occasion, was 28 
greater than for the former! 

This shows that even the Lords, who have 
by the way been the bitter and unrelenting 
enemies of every measure, not only for the 
benefit of the Irish, but for the British masses 
as well, are beginning to see the light, and are 
coming to realize that their days are num- 
bered, that the old order is passing away, 
and that the world does move after all! 

In fifty years from now, possibly in less, 
if the House of Lords should continue as 
part of the legislative branch of Great Britain 
it will in all probability be looked on as a 
long worn out Institution; and the world will 
wonder that even such a conservative people 
as the British could endure so long such a 
mouldy and mildewed body, especially as 
it serves no useful purpose, if it ever did ! 

Mr. William Jennings Bryan, our Secre- 
tary of State, recently voiced the popular 
sentiment, regarding the House of Lords; 
and the great achievement of the Irish Nation- 
al party in practically destroying the Lords 
further power for evil, by the amendment 
limiting their veto, power, when he said — : 
The degradation of the House of Lords 
is due to its opposition to the Home Rule 



36 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

Bill, which brought about an amend- 
ment to the English Constitution, thus 
making the concurrence of the House of 
Lords unecessary after a Bill has passed 
the House of Commons a third time. 
The Irish can point to this as one of 
the greatest achievements in history, hav- 
ing brought to a virtual end hereditary 
rule in the British Empire. 
and further added : — 

"The fighters for Home Rule are fighters 
of a world-wide battle, and those who 
oppose it have sounded the death knell 
of hereditary government." 



If the Irish Nationalist party had done 
nothing more than to pull down and destroy 
forever the unlimited governmental power 
of the Lords, that hoary headed anachron- 
ism of power, privilege and abuse, it has done 
enough to deserve the everlasting gratitude, 
not only of the Irish people but of the British 
as well! For the Lords have always barred 
the way to all true progress, not only in Great 
Britain, but wherever their power could reach! 
And this is especially true when the Liberals 
are in power. Even when the Tories, their 
own party, have charge of the Government, 
no reformatory measure can be put through 
except after the most intense pressure. 

On the other hand, they have always 
favored and clamored for every governmental 
wrong and abuse, both at home and abroad. 
As a few instances, I may mention that the 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 37 

war against the American Colonists in 1776 
to 1783 was largely their work, as was the 
second war against the Americans from 1812 
to 1814, as well as the letting loose of the 
privateers, Alabama and Shenandoah, and 
other vessels of a similar character, to prey 
on our ocean commerce in the 60s. 

At this time, when the life of our nation 
hung trembling in the balance, the Lords, as a 
body, gave almost their entire sympathy and 
moral support to the South ! 

They also, as one man, supported and up- 
held the infamous war by which Great Britain 
forced opium on the Chinese nation some 70 
odd years ago, and Great Britain, to its 
discredit be it said, is still forcing it on the 
Chinese, in spite of a treaty that stands in 
the way, and the protest of the New Chinese 
Republic! 

Needless to add, the Lords were always the 
cheerful instrument for enacting, and en- 
forcing, all that fiercely wicked English legis- 
lation for Ireland that has been put into force 
since the beginning of the English occupation. 

It is, therefore, a most hopeful and cheering 
sign of the times that the English Prime 
Minister, Mr. Asquith, has given notice, in 
the House of Commons, that he intends soon 
to bring in a bill to abolish the House of 
Lords, as at present constituted! 

God speed the day! 

It is evident, therefore, that if the present 
Liberal government should remain in power 
till June 1914, the Home Rule Bill, after its 



38 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

third reading by the Commons next year, 
will become a law, by the signature of the 
king, in spite of the Lords efforts to prevent it 
The general opinion of the Lords action 
is well expressed in the following extracts, 
one from a recent number of the Irish World, 
the other from London Daily News: — 

"FUTILE OPPOSITION." 

"The House of Lords did what was 
expected of it. On Thursday, January 
30, it rejected the Home Rule Bill by 
a vote of 326 to 69. It was an exhibition 
of anti-Irish hatred on the part of Eng- 
land's hereditary legislators that, if 
given a few years ago, would have killed 
the measure with which Ireland's hopes 
are bound up. The Lords, however, 
have been shorn of the power they once 
possessed. They can now delay, but not 
permanently defeat justice to Ireland. 
But even they have been affected by the 
spirit of the times, as is shown by a com- 
parison between the vote of the House of 
Lords on Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule 
Bill of 1893, and that by which the Lords 
rejected the Home Rule Bill of 1913. 

Twenty years ago 460 Lords con- 
stituted the jury that determined the 
question whether Ireland should have 
the management of her own affairs. 
Only forty-one members of that jury 
voted in favor of Ireland. The remain- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 39 

ing 419 were loyal to the anti-Irish tra- 
ditions of their caste. On Thursday of 
last week 395 Peers were assembled to 
pass judgment on the Home Rule measure 
that had received the approval of the 
representatives of the Democracy of 
Great Britain and Ireland. Of this num- 
ber sixty-nine went on record as approv- 
ing the action of the House of Commons; 
326 stamped it with their disapproval. 
One of them, Earl of Halsbury, thus 
bemoaned the altered circumstances that 
rendered the vote of the majority of the 
Lords less decisive than that cast in 
1893: "The position of the House is now 
that Peers could express their views and 
reject the Bill, but they could not pre- 
vent it from becoming law." It was the 
lament of privilege over the loss of power 
that in the past was so often employed 
to defeat the will of the British Democra- 
cy. 

Last week the Home Rule Bill mustered 
twenty-eight more votes in the House of 
Lords than a similar measure did two 
decades ago. It shows that "the light 
is spreading" even in the citadel of hered- 
itary privilege. 

"A TEDIOUS FARCE." 

"The London Daily News and Leader, 
commenting on the rejection of the Home 
Rule Bill by the House of Lords, says: 



40 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

"It is because the Lords, by identifying 
themselves with a political faction, have 
given up genuine debate and law-making 
and reduced their proceedings to a te- 
dious farce that there is no effective force 
behind their speeches. The Parliament 
Act has not done this thing ; the Lords 
have done it themselves. The Parliament 
Act merely registered the National 
recognition of the fact and the National 
determination to limit the degree to 
which a perverted chamber could be 
harmful until it made way for better 
men. With sorrow the Unionist leaders 
have had to admit that though they can 
suspend a great reform with their votes 
they cannot provoke the slightest sym- 
pathy with their actions." 



Many think because of the furious and long 
continued opposition of a few demagogues in 
Ulster, that that Province, at least, should be, 
excluded from Home Rule control! Perhaps 
the very best explanation I can give of the 
political condition in Ulster today is that 
given in a recent speech in the House of 
Commons by Mr. Asquith: — 

Speaking on an amendment to the Home 
Rule Bill, offered by Sir Edward Carson, that 
Ulster be excluded from the operation of 
Home Rule, he said- — 

"What is "Ulster?" Mr. Asquith asked 
the question and he answered it. "If 
this amendment," said he, "is carried the 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 41 

whole of Ulster wilj be excluded. What 
is Ulster? I have here a map in which 
Ulster is colored and I find that dividing 
Ulster according to its representation 
between those who are in favor of and 
those who are against Home Rule the 
whole of the North-west, the whole of 
the South, and a large part of the middle 
of Ulster (the County of Tyrone) is 
almost unanimously in favor of Home 
Rule. That is a geographical fact about 
which there can be no doubt. The whole 
of Donegal, which returns a united Na- 
tionalist representation, the whole of 
Tyrone out of which three Divisions as 
compared with one return a represen- 
tation in favor of Home Rule, the whole 
of Monaghan and Cavan, part of Fer- 
managh, and parts of Armagh and Down, 
all have a preponderating Nationalist 
population and are represented by mem- 
bers in favor of Home Rule and they 
would be excluded from the benefit of 
Home Rule. In point of fact there are 
only two counties in Ulster which return 
a uniform Unionist representation namely 
Londonderry and Antrim." 

The Irish World, commenting on Sir 
Edward Carson's demand, well says: 

"The cool impudence of Sir Edward 
Carson and his eighteen Irish Tory Par- 
liamentary colleagues in writing to Prime 
Minister Asquith asking him to exclude 



42 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

Ulster from the Home Rule Bill, would 
be amazing if these gentlemen were not 
already so well known for that feature 
of character. They first — in the begin- 
ning of the discussion on the Bill — pro- 
posed and demanded the exclusion of 
four counties-the Northeast corner. Mr. 
Asquith was not frightened by the threat- 
ening letter with its suggestions of ' 'mo- 
mentous consequences" and "righteous 
resistance" to the Bill, if passed with 
Ulster included. 

"Of course that is the way the Home 
Rule Bill will be passed. It will be passed 
with Ulster in it and every part of Ulster. 
The Bill will include all Ireland. Not 
one spot on Irish soil must be excluded. 
The Irish Nation claims Ireland from 
shore to shore as her inheritance and 
every inch of that inheritance must be 
under the governmental jurisdiction of 
Ireland's National Parliament. 

"That is the National demand of Ireland 
and it is recognized and conceded in the 
Home Rule Bill. Sir Edward Carson 
after making nothing of his threatening 
letter to Mr. Asquith proposed an amend- 
ment to the Bill, excluding all Ulster. 
The amendment was defeated by a major- 
ity of 97, which was the response of Great 
Britain as well as of Ireland to the auda- 
cious Orange claim that Ulster with its 
Home Rule majority in a majority of its 
counties should be left out of the Home 
Rule Bill. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 43 

"This important point was well ex- 
pounded and emphasized by Prime Minis- 
ter Asquith in his speech on the Carson 
amendment — a speech showing that Mr. 
Asquith thoroughly understands the situa- 
tion in Ulster and is thoroughly familiar 
with the facts of the case." 



Speaking at a great meeting in Dublin, 
Mr. Asquith put the Ulster opposition in 
still another way; as follows: — 

But to say that a minority, before 
any actual wrong is done, or can be done 
to them, upon the suspicion or appre- 
hension that in defiance of the forms 
of an act of Parliament and the supreme 
authority of the Imperial Parliament 
they may at some future time be injured 
or oppressed ; to say that a minority may 
be entitled, on such grounds, to defeat 
the constitutional demands of the vast 
majority of their fellow countrymen and 
to frustrate a great international set- 
tlement, is a proposition which in my 
opinion does not and never will com- 
mend itself either to the conscience or 
to the judgment of the British people. 
That is our answer. That is the statement 
of our case in regard to Ulster. 

"The body for which the above stated 
claim is made is a minority both in Ire- 
land and in Ulster. The latter fact, 



44 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

proved now at the ballot box in Derry, 
had, of course, already been well-known 
in the North. There has been no anti- 
Home Rule Ulster in existence." 



Ulster, which these fanatics would now rend 
to pieces and tear from its love and alle- 
giance to Ireland, has been in the past, as 
I have stated elsewhere, the fruitful mother 
of innumerable Irish martyrs and patriots, 
and the majority of her people are today 
as intensely Irish and patriotic as their 
fathers, and as anxious for Home Rule! 

In answer to Mr. Carson and his braggart 
crew, we Irishmen say: Ireland wants every 
inch of her soil, every single inch, North, 
South, East and West; Ulster, Munster, 
Leinster and Connaught; all are needed to 
make up an Ireland , one and indivisable, now 
and forever! 

She wants all her children too, of every 
class and creed, Catholic and Protestant, Jew 
and Gentile; all are needed to build up the 
new, the Greater Ireland, the regenerated 
Ireland that is coming soon; an Ireland that 
will not only rival but surpass her old time 
self in all that is truly great; in learning, in 
truth, in justice and in right. 

Mr. Ford's paper, the Irish World, which 
has made such a magnificent fight for Ire- 
land, in season and out of season, and which 
has raised so much money for the Irish strug- 
gle and for the Nationalist Party, comment- 
ing on the outrageous demand for the exclu- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 45 

sion of Ulster from Ireland, because that is 
really what the amendment meant, says: — 

"In Ulster as a whole there were, 
roughly speaking, nine Protestants to 
every seven Catholics, and it was not 
possible in the face of these figures, to 
justify the exclusion of the whole Prov- 
ince of Ulster. In the Bill the Gov- 
ernment had dealt with Ireland as a 
whole, and believed what was beneficial 
to Ireland as a whole could not, in the 
long run, be injurious to any part of it." 



And just here, it seems fitting that I should 
quote some lines from one of Ireland's best 
beloved sons, one who loved her dearly and 
suffered for her cheerfully, the late lamented 
John Boyle O'Reilly :— 

All thy life has been a symbol: 

We can only see a part; 
God will flood thee yet with sunshine; 

For the woes that drench thy heart. 

"The first glimmering of the dawn that 
precedes the noonday splendor of Irish 
legislative independence has been hailed 
by the Irish race and by all true lovers 
of freedom with an outburst of joy. In 
the National House of Representatives 
at Washington and in the State legisla- 
tures of New York and Nebraska resolu- 
tions of congratulation over the initial 



46 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

success of the Home Rule Bill fittingly 
reflect American sentiment. The Amer- 
ican press is unanimous in its expressions 
of approval of the action of the House of 
Commons." 



Since the above was written, almost all 
states in the Union have through their res- 
pective legislatures, passed resolutions of sym- 
pathy and congratulation. Our public men, 
with scarcely an exception, have shown like 
sympathy and friendship: Governors, Lieut. 
Governors, U. S. Senators and Congressmen, 
as well as others in public life. 

This is true also of Canada and Australia 
and all other British self governing possessions. 

Ireland has the sympathy, respect and 
good will of all the world, excepting the Tory 
Party of Great Britain and a small faction 
of Orangemen, in one or two of the Ulster 
counties. These try to make up in bluster 
and fury what they lack in numbers. 

"Mr. Thomas W. Russell, M. P., a 
high official of the Government in Ireland 
and a Protestant, said at a recent meeting 
in London that "the Orange mob of 
Belfast have been rioting periodically for 
the last half century, with nothing to riot 
for save a ferocious hatred of their fellow- 
countrymen — men who are Roman Cath- 
olics. Let them," he continued, "not 
talk to him about the religion of Belfast. 
There is no religion in Orange tyranny; 
it is downright savagery." 



Chapter IV. 
THE GREAT DERRY VICTORY. 

While telling of the passage of the Home 
Rule Bill in the Commons and the exciting 
and stirring events connected with it, I find 
there is good news from Derry; gloriously 
good news, for this city, an old time Tory 
stronghold, has suddenly swung herself into 
the Nationalists ranks, and after one of the 
most exciting elections ever held, even in 
Ireland, has elected Mr. David C. Hogg, a 
Scotch Presbyterian, as its Nationalist rep- 
resentative to the Brtitish House of Com- 
mons ! 

The election of such a man by a constituen- 
cy almost wholly Catholic gives the lie direct 
to the charge of Catholic intolerance! And 
he himself says : — 

I have lived fifty years in Ireland, and, in 
my opinion, an Irish Parliament will not 
endanger Protestantism in any form or man- 
ner. 

The capture of this Tory citadel by the 
Nationalists leaves only Antrim to the Orange- 
men; and even there a large portion of the 
people want Home Rule! 

This election in Derry is one of the most 
important and far reaching in its effects of 
any that has taken place in Ireland for a 
hundred years, and all the more so, occurring 
as it did on the very day after the rejec- 
tion of the Home Rule Bill by the Lords! 

47 



48 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

On that account, I shall give more space 
to this event, than it would otherwise call for. 
I shall begin by giving some correspondence 
from Ireland to the Irish World, as this 
able writer, Mr. O'Leary, was on the ground 
at the time and as his descriptions are most 
graphic: — 

I here quote them : — 

"Wild Demonstrations on Announce- 
ment of Vote. — Ulster Returns 
Home Rule Majority." 



"Londonderry, Jan. 31. — The Irish 
Home Rule party won a notable victory 
over Unionists in the election of a mem- 
ber of Parliament here yesterday. 

"The poll, which as usual was very close, 
resulted as follows: David C. Hogg, 
Nationalist, 2,699; Col. H. A. Pakenham 
Unionist, 2642. Majority, 57. 

"Majorities in Londonderry elections 
have always been small, ranging between 
26 in 1892 and 105 in 1911. 

"The seat has been held since 1900 by 
the Marquis of Hamilton, recently going 
to the Lords by the death of his father, 
the Duke of Abercorn." 

"Wild demonstrations followed announ- 
cement of the result of polling. There 
was a deafening tornado of cheers and 
hisses, accompanied by firing of revolvers 
in air, while green and red handkerchiefs 
and Union Jacks fluttered over the surg- 
ing crowd. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 49 

"Nationalists sang "A Nation Once 
Again," to which the Unionists responded 
with "Rule Britannia" and "God save 
the King." 

"Mounted and foot police had to clear 
the way and escort Mr. Hogg and Col. 
Pakenham on their way to their hotels. 

"Rival crowds of Home Rulers and 
Unionists came into contact at one point, 
and the police had to charge and dis- 
perse the people. 

"This victory of the Nationalists gives 
them a majority from Ulster, in the House 
of Commons. 

"Extraordinary efforts were made to 
bring every Unionist to the polls. 

"Voters had been brought from Amer- 
ica and other distant places. The sick, 
dying, halt and blind were taken to the 
polls. 

"One Unionist voter dropped dead in 
his home, while a motorcar with a doctor 
was waiting to take him to the booth. 

"Another, a paralytic, could utter only 
half of Pakenham's (the Unionist candi- 
date's) name, but his vote was allowed. 
Still another voted in guise of an invalid. 
He proved to be a man wanted by the 
police. 

"There was fear of violence among the 
"Last Ditchers," but the constabulary 
had little to do. 

"Several anti-Home Rule voters had 
been brought from the United States, 
Canada, and other distant places. 



50 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

"Col. Pakenham, the defeated Union- 
ist candidate, commandant of the Lon- 
don Irish Rifles, is a descendant of Gen. 
Pakenham who suffered a crushing de- 
feat at the battle of New Orleans, La., 
January 8, 1815, by the American Army 
led by Gen. Jackson, the son of Irish 
parents." 



THE NEWLY ELECTED NATIONALIST 
MEMBER FOR DERRY IS 
a Lifelong Anti-Unionist. 

He is a member of the firm of Hogg and 
Mitchell, shirt manufacturers, Derry. He is 
a son of the late R. V. Hogg, Glendearg, 
Melrose, Scotland, where he was born in 
February, 1840. Though a Scotchman by 
birth, he has been a half century in Ireland. 
In 1868, he had a notable experience in elec- 
tioneering in Derry. He was then supporting 
Serjeant Dowse, afterwards Baron Dowse, 
who, as a Liberal candidate, defeated Lord 
Claude John Hamilton, the Conservative. 
In the attack made on the old City Hall by 
an Orange mob Mr. Hogg was savagely assail- 
ed, was stabbed, and had his head badly 
injured. His brother, the late Adam Hogg, 
unsuccessfully contested Derry against Sir 
Charles Lewis. 

Even his opponents speak of him with 
respect. The "Derry Standard, 1 ' one of the 
local Unionist organs refers to him in the 
following terms: "Mr. Hogg is a Presbyter- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 51 

ian Home Ruler, and is held in very high 
esteem throughout the community. Although 
we differ from him in politics, we con- 
sider the Nationalists are singularly fortunate 
in their choice. Mr. Hogg will certainly 
conduct his campaign with the dignity and 
freedom from rancor which have uniformly 
distinguished him." 

The following is from the same writer, 
dated a day or two later, and as it deals with 
some new features of the great Derry victory, 
and throws fresh light on the fight, I make 
no apology for giving it here. 

"THE ULSTER VICTORY." 
Derry's Dramatic Answer to the 
Boasts and Bluff of the Orangemen. 



(From Our Correspondent.) 
CORK, February 2, 1913. 

Hogg 2.699 

Pakenham 2 . 642 

Nationalist Majority 57 

"Such was Derry's dramatic answer to 
the boasts and bluff of the Orange 
garrison. After having been twelve years 
outside the Nationalist pale, the Maiden 
City has surrendered to progress and 
reason and right — it has been wedded 
to Home Rule. It has hastened from 
the clutch of the black forest of Unionism, 
and has found the National highway. So 



52 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

confident were the Orangemen of retain- 
ing the seat that they fixed the polling 
for the day after the Home Rule Bill was 
rejected by the House of Lords, in order 
that the voice of the Ulster commoner 
might echo the wanton action of Ire- 
land's arch-enemies, the Peers, Far dif- 
ferent has been the answer of Derry. It 
has made a dramatic rejoinder to theii 
insolence. 

"It has completed the discomfiture of 
the Northern apostles of anarchy, and 
burlesqued the pretensions of Lord Lon- 
donderry, Carson, Craig and that crew 
to represent the feeling of Ulster. It has 
completely overwhelmed the last garrison 
of National reaction, and blown Ulster 
insurrections and Ulster provisional gov- 
ernments sky-high. By its action Ulster 
is represented by a Home Rule majority 
in the House of Commons. When the 
blatant voice of hooliganism was wont to 
roar "Ulster will be right," it little knew 
how soon it would come right in the 
Nationalist sense. Yes, Ulster is right 
at last. 

"Paralyzing Stroke to Orangeism." 

"Eighty-five out of the hundred and 
three members from Ireland are now 
Home Rulers, and eighty-two and a 
half per cent of the Irish representation 
is farmed with a mandate to fight for the 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 53 

liberties of the country. If we except 
the two members elected by the Tory 
graduates of Trinity College, Dublin, 
there is not a single Unionist sent to 
Parliament from the three Southern 
Provinces. And by virtue of Derry's 
magnificent justification of itself and 
Ireland, seventeen Home Rulers go to 
Parliament to challenge and defy the 
claim of sixteen. 

The importance of the result cannot 
be over-estimated. A paralyzing stroke 
has levelled Orangeism and all its works 
and pomps. The last argument against 
Home Rule has been smashed into smith- 
ereens. The tin cannon, wooden guns, 
provisional manifestos, covenants, and the 
thousand volumes choke-full of libels, 
may now be consigned to a bonfire in the 
streets of Derry, for the only part of 
Unionism that can survive this tremen- 
dous Orange holocaust is its ashes. 

"The Defeat of Despotism." 

"Ulster Anarchy has been given its 
quietus, its death blow. Irish Union- 
ism is a creed sickening to the grave. Its 
greatest stronghold but one has surren- 
dered, and the flag of Home Rule floats 
proudly today over the historic walls of 
Derry. It symbolizes the defeat of a 
despotism, and heralds the certain frui- 
tion of Irish hopes. We have heard the 



54 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

last of the partition of Ulster. Derry 
has assured her destiny — Ulster's part 
is in the Irish communion unto the end of 
time. 

"Lord Lansdowne told his plutocratic 
friends in the Lords that Ireland was 
growing indifferent to Home Rule. There 
was but one issue in the Derry election 
and the lesson taught by the result is 
that even Ulster is growing enthusiastic 
on the great question of questions, and 
that the majority of her Parliamentary 
divisions are eager to be free. The Home 
Rule representation is now as great as it 
was in the palmiest days of the Parnell 
movement; but the tottering cause of 
Irish Unionism is in the weakest position 
that it ever was. In future we may talk 
of our opponents as the Ulster minority. 
Lord Lansdowne already was incautious 
enough to be truthful — he spoke of "the 
Ulster fraction." 

"Pearl of the Irish Nation." 

"The completeness of the Derry tri- 
umph took the most sanguine Nation- 
alists by surprise. A single figure major- 
ity was the utmost limit of the Nation- 
alist hopes: the Tories forecasted a 
double-figure majority for Pakenham. 
The repeated conquests of the past made 
them arrogant and vainglorious. There 
was no such word as defeat in the lexicon 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 55 

of the successors to the Prentice Boys of 
Derry. In 1900 the Unionist majority 
was 67. In 1903 and 1906 the Unionist 
was returned unopposed. In the election 
of January, 1910, the Unionist majority 
was 57, and in December, 1910, it rose 
to 105. The seat, therefore, seemed the 
poisoned grounds of Unionism. It has 
been transformed into the pearl of the 
Irish Nation. The Catholic vote was 
2,679 and the Protestant 2,671. Three 
Catholics — soldiers of an English regi- 
ment — were known to have voted Unionist 
so that twenty-three Protestants must 
have voted for Hogg. 

"The poll was an exhaustive one. If 
the cemeteries were not polled, the in- 
curable hospitals were. The halt and 
maimed, the sick, dying and exiled walked, 
drove or were pushed to the poll. Two 
Australians voted for Pakenham, an Ulster- 
Canadian voted on each side, a New- 
Yorker voted on the right side, of course. 
The Australians were on the high seas 
when the vacancy was announced, but 
all the others made the journey specially. 
Very many outvoters came from various 
parts of England and Scotland. Several 
outvoters from America did not reach 
their destination in time. All the local 
shipping companies had to keep their 
vessels in port, for the sailors refused to 
go to sea until they had voted. 



56 on the threshold of home rule 
"Survivors of a Great Battle." 

"The blind and helpless, invalids and 
cripples, filed into the booths like sur- 
vivors of a great battle answering the 
last roll call — as, indeed, it will be the 
last call for many. George Atechson, 
aged eighty-six, who fought in the Crim- 
ean War under Col. Pakenham's father, 
was carried into the booth to vote for 
the son of his old commander. An old 
man named Flood, who fought for the 
North in the American Civil War, was 
also carried to the poll. He is eighty and 
paralyzed. He could not make the cross 
on the voting paper, but there was a fire 
in his eye as he gasped out "Hogg" to the 
presiding officer, and when his card had 
gone into the ballot box he gave a deep 
sigh and was carried home to what will 
probably be his death bed. 

"But he returned happy, for David 
Hogg shook him by the hand and thanked 
him for his great courage. But for the 
importation of twenty-seven Scots Fusil- 
iers, who left the Derry station last year, 
but whose names remained on the voting 
lists, the Nationalist majority would have 
been even greater. It was believed by 
the Unionists that the soldier vote would 
ensure the return of their candidate." 

"Exhaustive Nature of the Poll." 

"The total number of votes on the reg- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 57 

ister was 5,445. The total number of 
votes polled was 5,351. As there were 
ten votes spoiled owing to being inaccu- 
rately filled in, that left only 94 votes un- 
polled. Thirty-three voters have died 
since the register was struck. Twenty- 
one voters were at the ends of the earth, 
and could not reach Derry in time for 
the election. Six voters on each side 
were too ill to be brought to the poll, 
and by mutual agreement of the two par- 
ties were not disturbed. Over ninety- 
eight per cent of the votes on the register 
and 99 V4 per cent of available votes were 
polled. The exhaustive nature of the 
poll gives the Derry election an easy 
record in this connection. 

"The declaration of the result was at- 
tended by scenes of considerable excite- 
ment. An enormous crowd had assem- 
bled outside Derry courthouse, the Na- 
tionalists carrying green flags, while the 
Unionists sported Orange favors or waved 
Union Jacks. The Nationalists sang 
"God Save Ireland" in chorus, and 
cheered continually for David Hogg. The 
Orangemen responded with the singing 
of "God Save the King" and the dirty 
anti-Papal jingle, "Dolly's Brae." 

"Last Shots of Ulster Rebellion." 

"When the figures were read out, the 
jubilation of the Nationalists was intense, 



58 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

and the cheering having subsided, "A 
Nation Once Again" was sung in mighty 
chorus, and as the "Orange crowd 
sought to conceal their mortification by 
singing "The Walls of Deny," the two 
tunes seemed to blend into artistic sym- 
phony. For Orange and Green had car- 
ried the day. When Hogg appeared on 
the courthouse steps, he was saluted by 
a salvo of cheers; albeit a few stones and 
bottles were flung by some of Pakenham's 
braves. But these missiles were regarded 
as the last shot of Ulster rebellion, and 
fortunately did no damage. 

"The new member for Derry was es- 
corted in triumph to St. Columba's Hall, 
the Nationalist stronghold, where he ad- 
dressed a great crowd of enthusiastic 
supporters. The leading priests also ad- 
dressed the meeting, and as the result 
of the united appeals the Nationalists 
took their victory quietly, and in spite 
of much provocation did not retaliate 
on the hooligan crowd who, deeply mor- 
tified, tried to conceal their wrath by 
a show of typical Orange "forbearance." 
They are incensed by the fact that a 
spirited little band of Protestant Home 
Rulers gave Hogg a majority whose size 
has dumbfounded them. 

"A Bombshell to Anti-Home Rulers." 

"The result was awaited in every 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 59 

corner of Ireland and Great Britain with 
breathless excitement. It was a bomb- 
shell in the ranks of the anti-Home Rulers 
and struck them to the very heart with 
consternation and dismay. No election 
for many a long day has aroused such 
universal interest. It has caused as much 
excitement as the Passing of the Third 
Reading of Home Rule, and was an 
emphatic answer to the House of Lords. 
"The stars in their courses seem to be 
righting for Irish liberty, and it seems that 
nothing can go wrong with Home Rule, 
which has assumed the figure of destiny 
and a law of nature that it will require 
a miracle to withhold. Ulster no longer 
bars the way. She sends a Home Rule 
Majority to Parliament in the Home 
Rule year. For the past few weeks the 
Derry election was the supreme subject 
of public interest — now it passes into his- 
tory. It cannot fail to convince Great 
Britain, and one may almost find it in 
one's heart to pity Carson as he totters 
ignobly to his fall." 

"Special Editions of British Press." 

Special editions of the London news- 
papers carried the result of the election 
all over the British metropolis. Derry 
has succeeded in surprising England and 
confounding Belfast. In the House of 
Commons the allied armies celebrated 



00 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

the result with vehement applause, and 
the British Tories, who were awaiting the 
expected announcement of the return of 
Pakenham, had to drink the gall alone, 
for the Carson band kept away from the 
House in the dark and bitter day of 
defeat. 



Chapter V. 

HOW IT APPEARS TO OUTSIDERS. 

The Derry election having stirred up a 
world of interest, not only among the Irish 
people, but among peoples of all races who 
love liberty, it may be well to show how it 
appeals to American lookers on , so I copy 
the following from the Portland (Oregon) 
Telegram : 

Hard Stricken "Ulster." 

It was a blue day in Londonderry for 
the "Buffs" or the "Blues," whichever 
color designated the Tory cause. The 
very heart of revolutionary Ulster was 
left torn and bleeding. But yesterday 
Ulster was a nation, proud in its defiance 
of every Home Ruler, whether sitting in 
the halls of Parliament up in London, or 
bearing a stout Irish heart over the vales 
and bogs of Erin, anywhere from Gal- 
way to Dublin or from Donegal to Water- 
ford. 

"There was a covenant in Ulster, sol- 
emnly protested as in the days of Crom- 
well, and the ark of it was to be borne 
by the high-minded gentry and place 
holders to the repulsion of the King's 
soldiers, if necessary, rather than submit 
to the dominance of Irish liberty on Irish 
soil. Such was the status of Ulster 
yesterday. 

61 



62 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

"But today without the King's soldiers, 
and with no bloodshed, save possibly a 
broken head or two, Home Rule is trium- 
phant in the very citadel of revolt, the 
ark of the covenant is broken, and Ulster 
as a belligerent against the power of 
Britain is wiped off the map. 

It must have been a bitter pill for 
those who had to swallow it. That such 
misfortune might be forced upon these 
Ulster patriots from without, the world 
expected; that it should spring from 
within, and by the election of a Home 
Rule member from Londonderry, stag- 
gers all credulity." 



That we may get at the heart of the Orange 
opposition to Home Rule, and in a nutshell, 
I give the following question, asked in the 
House of Commons by Sir Edward Carson, 
one of the firebrand Unionist leaders, and 
John Redmond's answer to the same: — 

TWO QUESTIONS 

"Are you going to coerce the North- 
east corner of Ulster to live under a rule 
they detest (meaning Home Rule)?" 

"That was a question put to the Gov- 
ernment in the House of Commons by 
Sir Edward Carson. The question was 
answered by John Redmond, who said: 

"What did you do in the case of the 
Union (the destruction of Ireland's Par- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 63 

liament 112 years ago)? Remember that 
the ancestors of these men (some of the 
present Ulster Tories) were opposing 
the Union, and you forced the whole 
country under a rule they detested." 

"In further answer, Mr. Redmond asked 
a question, addressing the Tory Party: 
"If this Bill (the Home Rule Bill) fail, 
will you coerce the rest of Ireland to con- 
tinue to live under a system of rule es- 
tablished at the Union, and which they 
loathe and have loathed from that day 
to this?" 

"Mr. Redmond's question was not an- 
swered, from which it is fair to infer that 
by the Tories the true answer would be 
regarded as very awkward. 



In the above question, and answer, there is 
no mention of the long centuries of coercion 
of the whole of Ireland by the ancestors of 
the people whom Sir Edward represents, a 
coercion so fierce and bloody, so inhuman and 
fiendish that it is hard to believe it could have 
been invented by human beings, and worse 
still, enforced by human beings! 

From the following interview, reported by 
a special correspondent of the London Daily 
Telegraph, it will be seen that the modern 
Orangeman does not differ from his ancestor, 
except in degree and methods of displaying 
his bigotry: — 



64 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

"A SAMPLE OF ORANGE BIGOTRY." 
Orangeism in Action. 

"The special correspondent of the Lon- 
don Daily Telegraph in a dispatch from 
Derry, pillories the Orangemen of that 
city by the simple process of telling plain 
unvarnished facts. This he does through 
the medium of an interview with Mr. 
Tillie, the head of the largest manufac- 
turing firm of that city, which employs 
fifteen hundred hands. He is neither 
Catholic nor a Home Ruler, and yet he 
has been placed under Orange boycott. 
The head and front of his offending is 
that he refuses to sign the Orange "cov- 
enant" and thus enroll himself in Car- 
son's Army of "last ditchers." He is 
also guilty of the "crime" of not discharg- 
ing his Catholic employees at the dic- 
tation of the Orange lodges. In enumer- 
ating the charges that make up the Orange 
bill of indictment he says: "I refused 
to sign their silly 'covenant'. I refused 
to take any part in the proceedings by 
which Sir Edward Carson and his friends 
have made Ulster Unionism a laughing 
stock; and above all — and this has been 
the worst of all my crimes — out of 1,500 
people I employ at least 1,300 are Roman 
Catholics." 

The London Daily Telegraph corre- 
spondent in utter astonishment put the 
question: Do I understand you to say, 



CHARLES STEWART PARNELL 
First Leader Irish Party. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 65 

Mr. Tillie, that Derry Unionists think it 
wrong to employ Catholics?" The an- 
swer to this brings out the true character 
of the Orange bigots who object to Home 
Rule for the alleged reason that they, 
forsooth, might be made the victims of 
religious persecution ! Here is Mr. Tillie's 
answer: "Undoubtedly they do so and 
any man who does so freely (give em- 
ployment to Catholics) and cares nothing 
about the religion of the people he em- 
ploys, so long as they render him good 
service, is marked down." Here we have 
a practical exemplification of the spirit 
of Orangeism. It is a spirit of religious 
hatred that will stop at nothing to wreak 
vengeance upon those who have aroused 
it." 



At a meeting which Mr. Redmond ad- 
dressed in Scotland he put the Orange posi- 
tion as follows: — 

"WHAT WOULD THE SCOTCH DO?" 

"If the Catholic minority in Scotland 
objected to Home Rule for Scotland and 
declared they would fight against it if 
proposed, what would the Scotch major- 
ity say or do? The question is easily 
answered. It caused great amusement 
when Mr. Redmond once put it at a 
meeting in Scotland. He repeated it as 
an"example" in his speech the other day 



66 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

at Coventry and there was much laugh- 
ter at the idea. 

"They (said Mr. Redmond referring 
to Orange claim) will not permit Home 
Rule for Ireland, and they say plainly to 
you, the people of England, that if both 
your parties here, Liberal and Tory, 
united in passing a Home Rule Bill, it 
would not affect them. They still would 
stand out and by force of arms would pre- 
vent the will of the Kingdom from being 
carried out." 

"That is the claim of the minority in 
Ireland and the minority in Ulster. An 
'absolutely intolerable claim,' as Mr. 
Redmond describes it — a claim which 
goes "deep down into the whole system 
of democratic and representative insti- 
tutions." 

"Except on the principle of majority 
rule representative institutions, of course, 
could not exist. But the Orange party 
in Ireland want only one representative 
institution — Protestant Ascendancy. 



From an able, and well informed writer, 
I give an extract showing that Derry is not 
as great a stronghold of Orangeism as is 
commonly supposed: — 

"To those who are familiar with local 
conditions, it is well known that Derry 
is not overwhelmingly Protestant, as the 
Orangemen would have the world believe. 
Out of a population of 40,760 the Catho- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 67 

lies number 22,923, or fifty-six per cent 
of the total. The minority, however, by 
means of the system of plural voting and 
by the control of the electoral machinery, 
were enabled to outvote the majority. 
Hence the Catholics of Derry, though 
constituting fifty-six per cent of the 
population, were in a minority of about 
thirty on the registry. Such was the 
political situation on the eve of an elec- 
tion which was recognized by the friends 
and foes of Home Rule as big with future 
consequences. Mr. David Hogg, the 
Nationalist candidate, in his address to 
the electorate, stated the issue in these 
clear cut terms: 'By electing me you will 
enable me to support the enactment of 
this great measure, which will bring unity 
and prosperity to Ireland, and also to 
support the Government Bill for sweep- 
ing away the absurdities of the present 
franchise and for giving one vote only 
for every citizen.' " 



Ireland, in her demands for justice, knows 
neither creed nor class, and this is so well 
known to all who care to know it that a 
Philadelphia paper of recent date gives the 
following : — 

"The victory in Londonderry was not 
won on religious lines, for the whole 
question of home Rule is outside the 
domains of sect or of class. In London- 



68 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

derry this is especially so. And the 
people there decided at length to make 
common cause with their countrymen in 
Leinster and Munster and Connaught, 
and stand shoulder to shoulder with them 
in the now winning fight for home rule. 

"It is alike significant of their sincerity 
and of their patriotism that in their 
maiden effort for political freedom all 
religious lines should be obliterated, and 
that at a mass-meeting of the Nation- 
alists of the city, at which Catholics and 
non-Catholics attended, the nomination 
as candidate should be offered Mr. Hogg, 
a loyal and devoted Presbyterian, who 
accepted it and was subsequently elected 
by the Catholic and non-Catholic voters 
of the borough. Among those who most 
vigorously advocated the selection of 
Mr. Hogg was the Catholic bishop of 
Derry, Doctor McHugh, whose act rec- 
onciles with the absolute assurance that 
home rule does not mean Rome rule, and 
that under its regime religious intolerance 
on the part of the majority would be 
simply conspicuous by its absence, even 
if no safeguards against it had been pro- 
vided in the home rule bill, which the 
English and Scottish peers have decided 
that the men of Derry do not want. 

"The selection and election of Mr. Hogg 
gives the lie to the oft-repeated asser- 
tion that all industrial Ulster is opposed 
to home rule. Mr. Hogg is the largest 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 69 

employer of labor in Londonderry and 
one of the largest in all Ulster. Nearly 
2000 names are on the payroll of the 
enormous business he has built up, so 
thus he takes his place with Lord Pirie, 
Sir Hugh Mac, Mr. Shillington and Mr. 
Glenning and the other merchant princes 
of Ulster, Belfast included, who support 
the principles of home rule for their 
country." 



I have devoted a great deal of space to the 
Derry election because the Unionists have 
claimed that the whole of Ulster and, of 
course, Derry, as part of it, were bitterly op- 
posed to Home Rule in any form, and would 
fight to the death rather than submit to it. 
They based their opposition largely on the 
fact that the Unionists in the House of Com- 
mons numbered 17 out of a total for Ulster 
of 33, or a majority of one! 

Now the Derry election has changed all this, 
and turned the majority over to the Nation- 
alists! and so the Orange bubble has burst, 
leaving the Unionists in a minority in what 
they claimed as their stronghold! 

The people of the old city seem to fully 
realize that the question of Ireland's right to 
self-government is not, and should not be, 
limited to any one county or province, to 
any one class or creed. They see in it a 
great national question in which the interests 
and well being of all the Irish people are con- 
cerned, and they have decided accordingly. 



70 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

It is in the very nature of things then that 
the scattered children of the Gael should 
rejoice at the prospect of the Old Land's 
coming to her own again. We can shout out 
with the old Irish woman at the meeting in 
Australia recently: — We are Irish all the same! 

"IRISH ALL THE SAME" 

(At a meeting in Sydney, Australia, recently, Mr. 
Higgins, M. P., asked the Irish-born and Australian- 
born respectively to show hands, remarking that the 
latter were a majority, when an old Irish woman, 
sitting in the front row, interjected, amid an out- 
burst of cheering: "They're Irish all the same.") 

Oh bear we gladsome tidings back 

O'er ocean's vast expanse, 
'Twill flush the cheek, 'twill thrill the heart, 

And Erin's soul entrance 
Oh tell her that in far-off lands 

The "Young Race" bless her name, 
And tho' they never saw her hills, 

"They're Irish all the same." 

Oh tell her when her widow'd voice 

In plaintive accents calls 
They muster in the swelling throng 

In foreign streets or halls, 
And, join in prayer, in pledge and vow. 

And like their fathers, claim 
An Ireland free for Irishmen — 

"They're Irish all the same." 

Oh tell her tho' her heart's blood flows 

In every foreign course, 
Tho' gushing currents drain the fount 

Of nationhood's deep source; 
Tho' tainted springs would fain dilute 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 71 

And null the patriot's aim, 
That taintless blood begets its kind, 
Tn "Irish all the same." 

Oh tell her that by Coogee Bay, 

And Yarra's placid stream, 
On Hudson's banks and Afric's plains, 

Her stalwart children teem; 
That, Phoenix-like, regenerate 

And fanning freedom's flame, 
They're pledged to flaunt it on her shore — 

"They're Irish all the same." 

God bless that martyr land which gave 

Such bounteous blood and worth 
To freedom's cause and patriot ranks 

In every land on earth ! 
And may it be for filial hands 

Upon her brow of fame, 
To place the crown of liberty — 

"They're Irish all the same." 

God bless the faithful exiles who 

Remain true Irish still; 
God bless the "Young Race" sprung from these 

And staunch thro' good and ill. 
But woe to those, both old and young, 

Who skulk away in shame, 
While Ireland's deadly struggle's waged 

By "Irish all the same." 

M. C. O'Halloran. 

On the evening of the Deny election, after 
the battle had been fought and won, the 
enthusiastic Nationalists paraded the streets 
singing Thomas Davis's stirring patriotic 
poem: — A Nation Once Again! 

It was most fitting that the song should be 
heard by the hosts of bigotry and prejudice, 



72 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

for Davis was himself a Protestant, but one 
who believed in the justice and fair play of 
all his countrymen, Catholic and Protestant! 
A man who spent practically his whole life, 
night and day, in his efforts to make Ireland 
a free and independent Nation ! 

A NATION ONCE AGAIN. 

By Thomas 0. Davis. 

When boyhood's fire was in my blood, 

I read of ancient freemen, 
For Greece and Rome who bravely stood. 

Three Hundred men and Three men. 
And then I prayed I yet might see 

Our fetters rent in twain, 
And Ireland, long a province, be 

A nation once again. 

And, from that time, through wildest woe 

That hope has shone, a far light; 
Nor could love's brightest summer glow 

Outshine that solemn starlight: 
It seemed to watch above my head 

In forum, field, and fane; 
Its angel voice sang round my bed, 

"A Nation once again." 

It whispered, too, that "freedom's ark 

And service high and holy, 
Would be profaned by feelings dark, 

And passions vain or lowly: 
For freedom comes from God's right hand, 

And needs a godly train; 
And righteous men must make our land 

A Nation once again." 

So, as I grew from boy to man, 
I bent me to that bidding — 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 73 

My spirit of each selfish plan 

And cruel passion ridding; 
For, thus I hoped some day to aid — 

Oh! can such hope be vain? 
When my dear country shall be made 

A nation once again. 

Not much fear of Catholic intolerance, or 
persecution here, for Davis knew, as do all 
intelligent and honest men, that the Irish 
are all the most liberal and generous in the 
world in all matters of conscience. 

The following excerpts from a speech deliv- 
ered by John Redmond in England recently 
tells its own story as to Irish and British 
intolerance: — 

"A CONTRAST." 

"As to the charges by English Tories 
of religious intolerance against Irish Cath- 
olic Nationalists, John Redmond, speak- 
ing recently at a great meeting in Dalston 
(London), put a question in this way: 

"I want to know what right has this 
country (England) to charge Irish Catho- 
lic Nationalists with being prone to intol- 
erance? We have in our Irish Party, and 
always have had, a large proportion of 
Protestant members elected by Catholic 
constituencies. When this country 
wants to talk to us about Catholic in- 
tolerance, I answer by asking how many 
Catholic members are there returned by- 
English Protestant constituencies, al- 
though there are over two millions of 



74 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

Catholic residents in Great Britain? 'Let 
him that is without sin throw the first 
stone.' " 

"The answer to Mr. Redmond's ques- 
tion and the contrast he suggests are 
shown in these figures: 

"Great Britain (England, Scotland and 
Wales) sends 567 members to the House 
of Commons, and of this number only 
eight are Catholics. 

"The Irish Party has 85 members, and 
of this number seven are Protestants, 
all elected in Catholic districts. 

"No need to emphasize the moral thus 
presented as to religious tolerance in 
Protestant England and Catholic Ireland.' 



Chapter VI. 

COMPLETE ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT 
FIGHT TO DATE. 

The following able account of the fight for 
Home Rule in the Commons, and in the 
House of Lords, in all its stages, showing the 
different divisions and majorities for it on 
all occasions from its first vote in the House 
of Commons on January sixteenth to its 
last rejection, by the Lords, in July, nineteen 
hundred and thirteen, by James T. Sullivan, 
will be found instructive and interesting: 

When the English Parliament was pro- 
rogued last week at London it brought to 
an end the third chapter of the twentieth 
century fight for Home Rule for Ireland. 
There now remain two additional chap- 
ters before the battle that has enlisted 
the efforts of so many brilliant men on 
either side is finished. 

The three chapters that have added 
pages to the world's history comprise 
first, the passing of the Parliament Bill 
that checked the power of the House of 
Lords; secondly the passing of the Home 
Rule Bill by the Liberal Government in 
1912, and thirdly, the passage of the Bill 
again this year. Chapter four will make 
the passage of the measure in 1914 and 
the final chapter will be written when the 
Irish Parliament convenes in Dublin in 
1915. 

75 



76 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

"When that time comes — and it is now 
a foregone conclusion apparently, Irish- 
men the world over will have every cause 
for rejoicing, but none will have greater 
cause for jubilation than the thousands 
in America, who year in and year out 
since Parnell began his propaganda back 
in 1880 with the Land Leage movement 
have contributed moral and financial 
assistance to Erin. 

"Gladstone made a brave fight in 1886, 
but the prejudice was too strong at 
that time to get the measure a second 
reading even. But the venerable states- 
man tried again in 1893 with better suc- 
cess, for he succeeded in having the House 
of Commons pass the measure. Still the 
Lords proved the stumbling block and 
with a majority of 378 it was killed. 

"Out of Touch With People." 

"That was not surprising to those 
making the fight. Here again an entire 
generation later finds the Lords killing 
the bill in two successive years. But 
when an analysis is made of conditions 
it shows that the Lords are out of touch 
with the popular feeling in Great 
Britain, and the results that followed are 
ample proof that when the people are 
determined to rule they can find means 
of sweeping away opposition. 

"The great mass of people do not realize 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 77 

what a momentous piece of legislation 
was placed to the credit of England when 
the> so-called Parliament Bill was passed. 
Thoughtful students of government see 
in that measure a real check against rev- 
olutionary propagandas in the future, 
for it is one of the big assets in a rule by 
the people. 

"When future historians write about 
it, if they are sincere, they cannot fail 
to give praise where it rightfully belongs, 
that is to the Irish Nationalists, whose 
battle for Home Rule brought the issue 
to a head, and whose votes later aided in 
making it a reality. 

"It was on the issue whether the Lords 
or the people should rule that the Liberal 
Government was put in power with its 
big majority when the parliamentary 
act was placed before the people in the 
last general election. And the masses 
of Great Britain are friendly to Home 
Rule if the aristocracy as represented 
in the Lords are opposed to it. 

"Home Rule a Reality." 

"Once that measure was passed Home 
Rule began to loom up as a reality on 
the political horizon, and it carried with 
it other measures of benefit to England, 
Wales and Scotland. The Liberal Gov- 
ernment swept into power on a tidal 
wave of popular Government, has kept 
faith with the people ever since. 



78 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

"On Apirl 11, 1912, the Home Rule Bill 
was introduced in Praliament. The first 
test of the Liberal strength was shown on 
April 16, when it passed the first reading 
by a vote of 360 to 266, a majority of 94. 
It gained strength as it went along, for 
the vote on the second reading, May 9, 
was 372 to 271, by a majority of 101. 

"June 11 it reached the committee stage. 
It went along its way then while section 
after section was given consideration. 
Like a bombshell out of a sky, however, 
came a snap division when on one of the 
financial sections, the vote was 228 
against to 206 for it. Of course, the 
Unionists in seeking every infinite parti- 
cle of hope to defeat the Bill became 
jubilant. 

"But a snap division, which is sometimes 
a carefully laid trap of those antagonistic 
to the majority in Parliament, has been 
robbed of its real power compared to the 
past when ministers would resign and 
have Parliament dissolved, necessitating 
another election, if a negative vote were 
passed even on a trivial matter. In the 
parlance of every-day talk common sense 
prevails now where dignity ruled so 
overwhelmingly in the past as to make 
government sometimes top-heavy." 

"Unionists Disappointed." 

"Moreover, as a few days before this 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 79 

snap division the Liberal majority on a 
similar section of the Home Rule Bill 
was 121 and of the entire 670 members 
of the House but 434 voted, leaving 236 
absent, of whom but 40 were anti-Home 
Rule members, Premier Asquith simply- 
girded on his armor and proceeded to 
fight with greater determination. 

"There was no dissolution of Parlia- 
ment, simply a delay of about a week, 
during which the Unionists had their 
pent-up anger while seeing the bill 
roll along over them despite their plans 
and orations. 

"As an added incentive, to make them 
more angry, was a cable from Boston 
by Thomas B. Fitzpatrick, National treas- 
urer of the United Irish League, sending 
$10,000 to the Irish Nationalists with a 
few words of good wishes. 

"So on Dec. 12 the bill passed the com- 
mittee stage and the Ministry had a 
majority of 138 votes. The Christmas 
recess checked the Bill until Dec. 30, 
but it was a foregone conclusion then 
of what would follow, and so, on the re- 
assembling of Parliament the measure 
reached the report stage Dec. 30. 

"This year marked the culmination of 
the efforts of those behind the Bill, for 
on Jan. 16, by a vote of 367 to 257, it 
passed the third reading, giving it a 
a majority of 110, and this majority was 
continued on the usual motion to reject 



80 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

when the vote stood 368 to 258. The 
House of Commons was through with it 
for the time being. 

"The Bill went to the House of Lords, 
where it was quickly rejected on Jan. 30 
by a vote of 326 to 69, a majority of 
257. This was an improvement, though 
not very much so, over what happened 
a generation previously when Gladstone's 
bill was rejected by a majority of 378." 

"Fight Begins Again." 

"The fight was begun all over again 
on April 1, last, when the Bill was re- 
introduced to the Commons practically 
as when it was first put in. On June 2 
it received its second reading with a vote 
of 368 to 270, or a majority of 98. On 
July 1 it passed the committee stage au- 
tomatically. 

"This year there was no minute during 
the progress of the Bill when its friends 
were napping. The snap division taught 
them a lesson. Other snap divisions 
were planned but were check-mated. 
When a motion to reject was made on 
July 7 the majority was increased to 109, 
the vote being 252 to 243, and it passed 
the third reading then without a division. 

"It was then sent up to the Lords, where 
it was refused a second reading by a vote 
of 302 to 64, the majority being 238. 
This time the Marquis of Lansdowne 




MICHAEL DAVITT 
Founder of the Land League. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 81 

thought he discovered a plan to dodge 
the issue by presenting a motion that 
the House do not consider the measure un- 
til it had been submitted to the people. 
In order words, he wanted a referendum 
vote on it. 

"Under the new Parliament Bill it will 
be introduced again next February, 1914, 
and it should pass its various stages in the 
House of Commons, for without any 
General Election the Liberal Party will 
remain in control with its same majority. 
Then it will go to the Lords, where it will 
be rejected again undoubtedly. It will 
not matter one way or the other whether 
the Lords pass or reject it, for it will have 
passed its three successive Parliaments 
with two years intervening between its 
introduction and final passage, so it goes 
then to the King for his signature." 

"No Vacation for Members." 

Now that Parliament has been pro- 
rogued it does not mean that every one 
is going to have a vacation until the 
Legislative bodies convene next February. 
True, there will be no General Election 
to worry any one, but the Home Rule 
measure is going to be fought to a finish 
between the Unionists and the Liberals, 
particularly the latter's Irish represen- 
tatives. 

"Up and down the length and breadth 



82 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

of Great Britain and Ireland Sir Edward 
Carson and his band will travel making 
speeches, disseminating literature, send- 
ing communications to the newspapers 
and doing everything possible to arouse 
antagonism against the measure. They 
have already started on their campaign 
and it will continue until Parliament 
meets again. 

"The one great aim is to try to force 
dissolution of Parliament in some way 
after it has convened, and before the 
Home Rule Bill can be passed, for they 
make the claim that no provision has 
been made in the Parliament Bill for a 
dissolution in reference to a measure 
that must be passed in three successive 
sessions. 

"There is no lack of funds for this 
campaign. To let it go along unchecked 
would be unwise. Therefore the burden 
of combating the force of the Unionists 
falls mostly on the Irish Nationalists. 
Into every city, town, village and hamlet 
where the Unionists go members of the 
Irish Party will follow. And what has 
been stated by the former will be con- 
tradicted by the latter. That is why 
no one of the Irish members can come 
here this Fall to make speeches." 

"Last Call for Funds." 

"Now all this costs money. So the duty 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 83 

of supplying the sinews of war falls 
upon the members of the Irish race the 
world over. This country pledged at 
the last convention held at Philadelphia 
$100,000 and there remains about $40,000 
yet to be sent across the water. There 
is no doubt that it will be raised before 
the year is over. 

"The passing of the Parliament Bill 
and the introduction of Home Rule, the 
Welsh Disestablishment Bill, and the 
Bill against plural voting, so that one 
man will have but one vote, presage a 
new era of real rule by the people, grow- 
ing stronger from time to time. 

"Premier Asquith's plans to further 
shear the power of the Lords shortly by 
reducing their voting strength, elimin- 
ating hereditary powers to some extent, 
will bring that body in closer touch with 
the people and make it a more stable 
body, one that will not stand in its own 
light, and whose vetoes of Legislative 
acts passed by the Commons will have 
some weight. 

"Meanwhile Ireland and her sons and 
daughters must wait until 1915 before 
"Finis" is written in its new fight for 
freedom. It has cost much, but it will 
be worth the price." 



It is evident that Home Rule is becoming 
more popular every day in England, especially 
since its last rejection by the Lords, in July, 



84 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

and is in fact sweeping everything before 
it, as shown by the great Liberal victory in 
the late by-election in Chesterfield, where 
Mr. Barnet Kenyon, the Liberal candidate, 
was triumphantly elected by over 400 more 
votes than the Liberal received in 1910, and 
this notwithstanding the fact that the Tories 
made a tremendously strong and bitter fight, 
and on the one supreme issue of Home Rule! 



Chapter VII. 

A NEW DANIEL COME TO JUDG- 
MENT! 

Among other opponents of Home Rule, I 
find an able English writer, a Mr. Sydney 
Brooks. This gentleman wrote a short 
time ago a series of articles entitled "The 
New Ireland," which were published in the 
North American Review. 

Through practically all his articles, Mr. 
Brooks concedes the thorough inefficiency of 
British rule, its almost complete breakdown, 
the enormous load of overtaxation which 
Ireland is compelled to carry, and with it all, 
as he says, one of the poorest educational 
systems in the world ; and yet, almost incred- 
ible to relate, he wants it continued! 

No native rule could possibly be worse 
than he admits British rule to be, and must 
of necessity be better. Still in justice to Mr. 
Brooks, it should be stated, he tries very hard 
to be just and fair and even sympathetic at 
times, as can be seen from the following ex- 
tract from his writings: — 

"It will be more convenient to round 
off this superficial picture of Ireland's 
condition by noting some of the more 
obvious results of her connection with 
Great Britain. One of these results is 
that Ireland, though a poor country, is 
obliged to maintain one of the most ex- 

85 



S6 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

pensive governments in the world. She 
is administered by an amazing medley 
of overmanned, overlapping Boards, 
with their headquarters in Dublin Castle. 
It is a system that has most of the vices 
of a bureaucracy and very little even of 
its mechanical efficiency. A Russian 
bureaucracy in Finland could not be more 
utterly divorced from the sympathies 
and confidence of the people it rules. 
The stronghold of a small minority, of a 
single class, almost of a single creed, 
overrun with placemen impenetrable to 
Irish ideas and Irish needs, uncontrolled 
by Parliament in London or by any rep- 
resentative body in Ireland, and pre- 
sided over by a Viceroy who maintains 
that most demoralizing and contemptible 
of all social institutions, a sham Court, — 
I scarcely know what merit it possesses 
or what faults it lacks. With a slightly 
smaller population than Scotland, Ire- 
land is saddled with nearly three times 
as many officials, a police force twice as 
large and costing $5,000,000 a year more 
for its upkeep, and a judiciary three 
times as expensive in proportion to popula- 
tion as the judiciary of England and 
Wales. An example is thus set of jobbery 
and extravagance that permeates the 
whole conduct of government in Ireland. 
Another result of the legislative union 
with Great Britain is that Ireland is 
grievously overtaxed. It is not that 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 87 

taxes are imposed upon her which are 
remitted in England, Scotland or Wales, 
The exact contrary is the case, certain 
taxes, mainly of an insignificant character, 
which are collected from the other parts 
of the United Kingdom, being remitted 
in favor of Ireland. Irish overtaxation 
is due to the fact that the capacity of the 
people to bear taxation is below that of 
the English, the Welsh or the Scotch, 
and that identical imposts fall upon her 
shoulders in consequence with a dispro- 
portionate weight. She contributes a- 
bout one-eleventh of the British revenue, 
whereas her taxable capacity is not es- 
timated to exceed one-twentieth; and the 
burden falls all the more heavily on her 
poor, inasmuch as over seventy per cent, 
of the amount extracted from her is de- 
rived from indirect taxes." 



This is his picture of the result of British 
control in Ireland, and if there be anything 
worse in the wide world in the way of govern- 
ment, it would be very hard to find it. 

In the above extract, Mr. Brooks admits 
enough to condemn forever any claim that 
British rule might have for further continu- 
ance. And he says elsewhere, he has not told 
anything like the whole story ; and he has not, 
as I shall show later on. 

He tells us while Ireland's population is 
less than that of Scotland, the government 
officers are almost three times as many; the 



88 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

police force nearly twice as large, and costing 
five millions more for its maintainance; and a 
judiciary three times as expensive in propor- 
tion to population as the judiciary of England 
and Wales. In a word, English government 
in Ireland, is the most expensive in the world. 
Nor are we to suppose this enormous army 
of officers are needed because of lawlessness 
in the Irish people. The very reverse of this 
is true, for there is no country in the world 
with a like population so free from crime and 
criminals as Ireland, as shown by the fact 
that at nearly all the general assizes the 
judges are presented with white gloves by 
the sheriffs, indicating there are no crim- 
inals to be tried. 

In the above account, Mr. Brooks does not 
mention that semi-military body of men 
known as the Royal Irish Constabulary, 
consisting of a force from ten thousand to 
twelve thousand men. Nothing like this 
body is found in any part of Great Britain. 
It is not easy to define their duties, which are 
supposed to be the enforcement of the reven- 
nue laws . The real duties, however, seem to be 
to act the part of country detectives, to keep 
a quiet look out on the private lives of the 
people. 

It is needless to add, this half military body 
requires a great deal of money for its upkeep: 
and gets it, as it is a favorite with the powers 
that be. The Irish people must maintain, 
and that well, these pampered pets. Queer, is 
it not, especially when we are so often told 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 89 

that under the British flag all are treated 
alike? It is safe to say, if Ireland had charge 
of her own affairs, most of these men would be 
obliged to find some honest employment, and 
they as well as the country, would be the better 
for it. 

THE IRISH SYSTEM OF EDUCATION. 

As Mr. Brooks so well says: — There is 
nothing so vital to the well being of a Nation 
as Education. Let us see his account of how 
Great Britain attends to this supremely im- 
portant matter in Ireland: — 

"There is nothing more vital to the well 
being of a nation than its educational 
system. Ireland has no educational sys- 
tem; it has merely an educational chaos. 
The defects of the primary schools may 
be seen on the very surface of the stat- 
istics. With about the same popula- 
tion as Scotland, Ireland has about twice 
as many schools and over 3,500 more 
head teachers. The inference that she 
is therefore twice as well educated is not, 
however, a sound one. The Irish per- 
centage of illiteracy is twelve times as 
high as the Scottish figure. The ex- 
planation of these anomalies is very 
simple. The fierce and historic conflict of 
sects in Ireland has stimulated each de- 
nomination to provide its own schools. 
Thus, in a village just capable of support- 
ing one good school you will find two, 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

three and sometimes four. The Church 
of England will have one, the Presby- 
terians another, and the Catholics will 
require two — one for the boys and one 
for the girls. In this way a total of 
nearly nine thousand schools is easily 
reached. Over five thousand of them 
are attended by pupils of one sex only, 
and in the remainder one faith or the 
other is usually in a great majority, a 
"conscience clause" protecting the re- 
ligious susceptibilities of the minority. 
The results are that the Irish primary 
schools, being far in excess of the re- 
quirements of the population, are among 
the worst built and the worst equipped; 
their management is wholly in the hands 
of the clergy ; their teachers are miserably 
paid; the children play truant two days 
out of every five; and each successive 
generation is insensibly familiarized with 
the idea that sectarian exclusiveness is 
one of the natural conditions of civilized 
life. Redundant schools, starved and 
ill-taught teachers, clericalism in un- 
challenged control, an almost total lack 
of local interest, a curriculum wholly 
divorced from the economic needs and 
realities of the country, and, to crown 
all, a National Board of educational ama- 
teurs, nominated by Dublin Castle, in- 
sensible to Irish ideas and representa- 
tions, deliberating in secret and decreeing 
without either consultation or explana- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 91 

tion — such are the outstanding features 
of the Irish "system" of elementary edu- 
cation. Nor are the secondary schools 
in much better plight. There are in 
Ireland very few of those noble endow- 
ments which are the glory of England 
and America." 



He continues: — 

"The primary, and intermediate schools 
are ludiciously imperfect, the latter 
being managed by an independent board 
of their own, whose contribution to Irish 
education is a costly extension of the 
pernicious system of payments by results. 
"With technical instruction only a be- 
ginning has been made; and all I need 
say at present of the state of higher 
education is, that there is but one univer- 
sity with any pretension to be judged by 
the standards of modern scholarship; 
and that one is the rallying point for 
Protestantism! and therefore shunned 
by the Catholics, who form three fourths 
of the population." 
"Clearly from the above, it was time the 
Irish people, as soon as they were freed from 
the Penal Laws, and had the means, should 
take as far as possible the education of their 
children, into their own hands; and they have 
done it. 

"The London Times, one of the most bitter 
and fiercest enemies of Irish Nationality in the 
world, on last St. Patrick's day, published 



92 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

an Irish number, treating everything on which 
it touched in a most friendly and sympathetic 
spirit. This is what it said concerning 
educational matters in Ireland: — 

"IRISH CATHOLICS AND EDUCATION." 

"In its St. Patrick's Day" Irish Number." 
"The London Times gives much and 
high credit to the Catholics of Ireland for 
their work in education as soon as, by 
the partial relaxation of the Penal Laws, 
it became possible for them to take any 
practical concern in educational matters. 
What the condition as to educational 
facilities was at the time for Catholic 
and Protestant in Ireland the Times states 
briefly and fairly. 

"At the beginning of the last century," 
it says, "the Protestants of Ireland were 
well provided for educationally. They 
had Trinity College, Dublin ; they had the 
Royal Schools, the Erasmus Smith schools 
diocesan schools, 'the Charter' schools, 
the schools under Kildare Place Society, 
all well endowed, and all conducted on 
strictly Protestant principles." 

"The Catholics, on the other hand, 
had no endowments and were receiving 
no financial aid from public sources ex- 
cept the then small grant to Maynooth 
College. Whatever schools they had 
were built and supported out of their 
own slender resources. The first grant 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 93 

of public money for primary education, 
in a form at all acceptable to Catholics, 
did not come until 1831." 

"Long before any public funds were 
forthcoming," says the Times, "the teach- 
ing orders (of the Catholic Church) 
whether of men or women had been at 
work building and equipping schools, 
and providing education, both primary 
and intermediate, not only in the large 
centers of population, but also in many 
country districts. It can safely be said 
that the educational work of these orders 
would compare not unfavorably with simi- 
lar work done at that time in England 
or in Protestant schools in Ireland. 
When tested later on by the inspectors 
of the (Government) National Board, 
it was found that the schools of the teach- 
ing orders more than held their own as 
compared with the other schools through- 
out the country." 
After paying a glowing tribute to the re- 
ligious orders and their great work for 
education, the Times says: — ' 'They were insti- 
tuted between 1791 and 1827; and would 
seem to have come into existence to meet 
the educational wants of the times." There is 
something very striking in this springing up 
of these six teaching orders within a short 
period in a country as small as Ireland. 
The simple facts were, that the time had come 
when the Irish Catholics were at liberty to 
open schools, and these six orders simulta- 



94 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

neously, as it were, came into being to help 
them do so. To an Irish Catholic, it might 
seem as if some of the seed shed by the old 
monasteries and church schools had sudden- 
ly sprouted, and bore fruit." 

These are noteworthy words coming from 
the Times, which for generations, from its 
first number in fact, has been especially bitter 
and hostile to everything Irish and Catholic. 
This paper would never admit heretofore the 
Irish were fit for self-government, and now 
it practically concedes all it has so strenuously 
denied in the past. 



Chapter VIII. 

ENGLISH TAXATION IN IRELAND. 

When we Irish have made charges against 
English rule similar to those made by Mr. 
Brooks, as we have for centuries, we were 
laughed to scorn and told we were falsifiers 
and sentimentalists; that we had the very 
best government in the world, as well as the 
most economical, in fact an ideal government ; 
but such was our innate cussedness, nothing 
could satisfy us, not even the blessedness and 
luxury of British rule! Mr. Brooks shows that 
whatever British dominion may mean else- 
where, in Ireland it is one of the poorest and 
most extravagant in the world. As a further 
proof of this, I may mention that the total 
amount of taxes raised in Ireland in 1907 
were $47,500,000, or about double what well 
informed men think would be necessary under 
a native Parliament. Of this sum $38,392,000 
was for Ireland itself, while $10,000,000 were 
taken away to be spent for other than Irish 
purposes, that is to say for imperial uses; 
and in some of these, at least, Ireland had not 
the slightest interest. Worse still, a great 
part of this money was spent in the prose- 
cution of the war against the Boers, an en- 
terprise in which the Irish Nation had not 
only no interest, but one to which three 
fourths of the people were opposed, and all 
this money taken from poor impoverished 
Ireland for great, wealthy Great Britain. 

95 



96 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

The late Mr. Gladstone, when introducing 
the Home Rule Bill in 1893, declared the cost 
of Irish Government per head to be double 
that of England. This one fact is, in itself, 
a sufficient condemnation of English rule, 
and enough to justify the change for Home 
Rule. 

Mr. Thomas W. Russell, Vice President 
of the department of Agricultural and Tech- 
nical instruction, a gentleman who held im- 
portant office in Ireland under a Unionist 
administration, and who is neither Irish nor 
Catholic, gives some of the minor abuses of 
English control in Ireland. I introduce this 
because it throws a side light on government 
abuses, as showing how the great majority 
of the people are ignored, and nearly all the 
high offices given to a favored few. 

Is it any wonder these grafters should 
object to Home Rule or indeed to any just 
rule. 

"Of the six great officers of state at 
the Castle, five are Protestants. There 
are sixteen Superior Court Judges and 
thirteen of them are Protestants. Of 
the host of highly paid officials in the 
Local Government Board Land Commis- 
sion and Agricultural Department not 
one-fourth are Catholics. The three 
Commissioners of Public Works are all 
Protestants. The Resident (paid) Mag- 
istrates and police officers are largely 
Protestants. In fact, through the whole 




JOHN DILLON, M. P. 
East Mayo. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 97 

official hierarchy the story is the same. 
Leaving salaried offices and coming to 
positions of trust (honorary offices), what 
do we find? The Privy Councillors 
and Lord Lieutenants of Counties and 
cities are almost exclusively Protestants. 
The predominance of Protestants in the 
magistracy is enormous." 



It is very easy to understand, in view of 
these unjust conditions, the terribly fierce 
opposition to the granting of self-government 
to Ireland by the ascendency party , by the 
small clique that holds the nation by the 
throat. 

In the past they have held nearly all the 
offices of honor and emolument as they do 
today, and they hate to let go their grip. 
It is often said by unfriendly critics that 
Ireland's grievances are largely sentimental; 
in fact almost entirely so ; and have no solid 
ground to rest on. This is one of the stock 
charges, and is made so often by those who 
do not know, or want to know the facts, that 
they believe it themselves. Even Mr. Brooks 
makes it, and this, too, in spite of the fact 
that he has himself given it the most positive 
and direct contradiction in a number of 
places in his writings. To some of these, 
I have already called the readers' attention. 
For instance, when he shows the gross ex- 
travagance, the load of overtaxation, the 
inefficiency and the wretched system of 
education, and soon. If these are not prac- 



98 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

tical grievances there can be none anywhere. 
Then there are Mr. Russell's charges bearing 
on very practical matters indeed, showing 
how the representatives of three fourths of 
the people are almost entirely barred from 
office in their own country, and especially 
from all the important, the higher offices. 
Yet we are told, we really have nothing at all 
to complain of, that we have only imaginary 
grievances. 

Let us examine this matter of overtaxation 
a little more, for it is a vastly important 
subject, particularly in a poor country like 
Ireland. 

Taxation is as far removed from sentiment 
as possible. It deals only with the practical, 
with the material, with dollars and cents. 

Some years ago, in 1884 I think, a Royal 
Commission was appointed in Great Britain, 
to investigate certain important fiscal mat- 
ters, and, among them, to show the amount 
of money which the different parts of Great 
Britain, England, Scotland, and Wales, as 
well as Ireland, were paying into the imperial 
exchequer annually. The Commission was 
composed of fourteen members, the ablest 
financiers to be found. 

Though there were but two Irishmen in 
the body it reported unanimously that since 
the so-called Union in 1801, Ireland had been 
overtaxed, and paying greatly in excess of 
her just share, and since 1853 an average of 
$13,500,000 a year more than her share. 

Leaving out the excess paid between 1801 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 99 

and 1853, a total of fifty two years, and taking 
only the overcharge from the latter year 
until now, it is seen that Ireland has paid 
over and above her proportionate share of 
imperial taxation, between three or four bil- 
lions of dollars. Practical enough this surely, 
and not a sign of sentiment. I can almost 
imagine I hear the reader say, "but surely 
there has been some redress; a portion of this 
money, at least, has been returned." Not one 
cent; but ten million dollars more have been 
added to Ireland's share since, making a 
grand total of twenty three millions and five 
hundred thousand dollars more than she 
ought to pay as her portion of the share of 
the white man's burden, In one of the 
articles of the union between Great Britain 
and Ireland, it was expressly stipulated that 
the debts of the two contracting parties 
should never be united, and for the best of 
reasons; for, while the debt of Ireland at the 
time was only a little over one hundred mil- 
lion dollars, that of England was two billion 
two hundred and thirty million dollars or 
about twenty two times the debt of Ireland! 

It was also agreed that Ireland should 
never be asked to pay more than her means 
would warrant. 

Both these conditions were and are being 
broken. The debts of the two countries 
were united in 1817. Since then, Ireland has 
become responsible for England's enormous 
debts, principal and interest, and, as Mr. 
Brooks shows, while her resources are only 



100 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

one twentieth those of Great Britain, she is 
compelled to pay one eleventh of the taxes! 
Stupendous as was the British debt at the 
time of the Union, it was comparatively small 
to what it has since become! 

England's present enormous debt, it is 
hardly necessary to inform intelligent people, 
was chiefly contracted during the last two 
centuries, while carrying on the many wars 
she then waged in all parts of the world, 
wherever there was territory or plunder to 
be secured, but chiefly during the two wars 
against the Americans, the Revolutionary, 
and the other war against them from 1812 to 
1814; her wars with the great Napoleon 
ending at Waterloo in 1815, and last, but not 
least, the Boer war a few years ago. 

And just here it seems fitting that I should 
interrupt the matter of Irish taxation for a 
few moments to refer to another subject 
that demands attention here. 



Chapter IX. 

ENGLISH EFFORTS FOR AN 
AMERICAN ALLIANCE 

During the Colonial war, just referred to, 
this country was poor and weak and had few 
friends, at least at first, and a strong and 
powerful enemy, England. She, not content 
with the ordinary usages of war, employed 
the savage indians against the colonists; 
paid them so much per scalp for those of 
men, women and children. 

In the second war from 1812 to 1814 our 
condition as to strength and prosperity was 
not much better than in the earlier days, 
and we still had that same powerful and im- 
placable enemy to contend against; England. 

In the two years this second war lasted 
England, true to her old time methods, rav- 
aged our coasts, burned our cities, destroyed 
the Capitol at Washington and all the public 
buildings, as well as all the places on the 
coast her forces could reach. 

At the time of the Civil war in the 60s, 
our country had become strong and powerful , 
rich and prosperous, a rival on sea and land 
to the great European nations; and again 
we had an enemy at our gates: England! 
Always England! 

She had now become jealous of us as a 
rival in trade and commerce. Besides the moral 
effect of our great Democratic institutions 

101 



102 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

was tearing away the foundation of her Aris- 
tocratic system and threatening to destroy it. 

For all these reasons, Great Britain wished 
to destroy us, and did everything in her power 
to that end. Everything short of actual open 
war. Sent out her Alabamas and Shenandoahs 
and other semi-pirate vessels to prey on 
our commerce, and drive it from the ocean; 
and succeeded too. And to such an extent that 
to this day our ocean carrying trade has not 
recovered from the blow then received. 

That the Civil war was prolonged at least 
two years by England's material aid and sym- 
pathy to the South, is well known to all. 

Today America is great and mighty and 
powerful; among the greatest and mightiest 
in the world , and all the big nations are tum- 
bling over each other for her friendship. 

Strangest of all, England is too! And as a 
consequecne there is a hullabaloo of sound 
and fury from her friends, both in Great 
Britain and here; shouting about "hands across 
the sea," "blood being thicker than water." 
"a common language, literature and bible," 
and so on, besides the claptrap and humbug 
of the so-called one hundred years of peace. 

It may be asked what all this has to do 
with the Irish question? Much, for we Irish 
are always grateful to the great nation which 
opened wide its gates to receive us, and gave 
us a refuge and a home when driven like 
wild beasts from the land of our fathers. 
And we want to warn and caution her a- 
gainst the"Greeks bearing gifts, "against the 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 103 

nation which under the guise of friendship, 
is trying, by a thousand and one agencies, to 
get the United States into something, any- 
thing, that can be presented to the world as 
American British Aliance! 

It may be said that England has had a 
change of heart since the Civil war and has 
repented in sack cloth and ashes. There are 
some uncharitable people in the world, how- 
ever, who say that England's relations with 
some of the great European countries are not 
too friendly, especially with Germany, and 
that fact, they say, explains John Bull's 
sudden and fawning love for Uncle Sam . 

Mr. Carnegie tells us this British love is 
so deep, the British people will never be happy 
again, never rest contented, until the United 
States are reunited to Great Britain! And 
then, he adds, in the last edition of Trium- 
phant Democracy that the reunion of the 
United States with Great Britain is as sure 
as the rising of the sun to-morrow! When it 
comes, Carnegie tells us, the United States 
will fight England's battles, defend her on 
land and sea, be responsible for most of her 
public debts, a large portion of which was 
contracted in the wars already referred to 
against the Americans, and open wide our 
markets to England's goods, free of duty. 

Lest the reader should think I am romancing 
I here give Carnegie's very words: — 

"When the Union is restored it will be 
upon a basis of uniting also the National 



104 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

debts as they stand, and making all a 
common obligation of the Union, so that 
the United Kingdom would be relieved 
at once of the greater portion of its 
National debt, and of at least one-half 
of all its present heavy taxation, even 
if no reduction of expenditure resulted 
from having one general government. 

"An Anglo-American Reunion brings 
free entry here of all British products 
as a matter of course. The richest 
market in the world is open to Britain 
free of all duty by a stroke of the pen. 

"I do not hesitatee to say that Reunion 
would bring with it such demand for 
British products as would tax the pres- 
ent capacity of Britain to the utmost. 

"Were Britain part of the Re-United 
States all that she would be interested 
about in Europe would be fully secured; 
namely, the protection of her own soil 
and the command of the seas. No bal- 
ance of power, no occupation of Egypt, 
or any similar question would be of the 
slightest importance. The Re-United 
Nation would be prompt to repel any 
assault upon the soil or the rights of 
any of its parts." — Andrew Carnegie. 



MORE ABOUT IRELAND'S TAXATION. 

A nice little program has the little laird 
of Skibo castle, marked out for Uncle Sam! 
And let it be carefully remembered, he has 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 105 

forty so-called peace societies in this country 
working to bring about these results ; and these 
societies are financed by him to the extent 
of ten millions of dollars; a small part of the 
four hundred million dollars the canny Scot 
is said to have wrung out of American labor! 
Is it any wonder the Star Spangled Banner 
is being mutilated? and everything offensive 
to England cut out, and that our school text 
books are being made over, so that during 
the Revolution England is made to appear 
as almost the injured party, and the Colonists 
as the oppressors! 

IRISH SYMPATHY FOR AMERICA. 

Ireland had no interest in the prosecution 
of any of the wars just mentioned. Any 
interest she had was one of warm sympathy 
for the victims of England's aggression, 
especially for the Americans and the Boers. 

And yet, Ireland which as a Nation, was 
bitterly opposed to these savage wars, must 
pay her share of the expenses. The bitter 
opposition of the Irish people to the war on 
the Americans in 1776 is shown by the fact 
that as soon as the Irish soldiers in the English 
army learned they were to be sent against 
the Colonists they had to be chained and 
manacled before they could be put on board. 

Ireland, everywhere and always the friend 
of liberty and justice, and in a special manner 
of the Americans, is obliged to pay for En- 
gland's attempt to rivet the chains of slavery 
on them! 



1 06 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

As showing the sympathy and friendship 
that has always existed between the United 
States and Ireland back to Colonial days, 
and coming down to the present time, the 
following incident, one of hundreds that 
might be selected, showing how Ireland trans- 
lated her kindly feelings into acts, towards 
Ethan Allen, the brave and gallant young 
Colonial officer, while he was a prisoner on 
board an English war ship in Cork harbor: 
during the Revolution. I copy the follow- 
ing from the Irish World: — 

"During the early days of the Revolu- 
tion the daring young patriot, Ethan 
Allen, was sent by Gen. Montgomery on 
a mission to Canada to endeavor to in- 
duce the people to take up arms against 
the English. Several hundred Cana- 
dians volunteered. On his return to 
camp he was detailed to attempt the 
capture of Montreal. He was defeated 
in his attack, and forced to surrender 
with the condition of being honorably 
treated. 

"As soon as his men had laid down their 
arms an attempt was made to slaughter 
them by the Indian mercenaries in the 
English service, and it was with great 
difficulty that their lives were saved. 
Prescott, the British general, threatened 
Allen with "a halter at Tyburn," and 
caused him to be put on board an English 
man of war, where he was manacled and 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 107 

his limbs cased in shackles, to which a 
bar of iron eight feet long was fastened. 
His men who were made prisoners, twen- 
ty-eight in number, were treated in like 
manner. 

"Allen, after having been ironed, was 
thrown into the hold of the ship, with 
only a sailor's chest for his bed and seat, 
and kept in this situation for five weeks, 
when he was sent to Quebec, and trans- 
ferred to another vessel. Here he ob- 
tained a brief respite from the brutal 
treatment to which he had been subjected 
but on the approach of the American 
army he was again heavily ironed, placed 
on board an English warship about to 
return home and, with a number of 
other Americans prisoners, sent to Eng- 
land. 

"They were all crowded into a single 
small apartment, and were not allowed 
to leave it during the entire voyage, 
which lasted forty days. When taken 
ashore at Falmouth the prisoners were 
still kept in irons and treated with 
extreme brutality. Allen was repeatedly 
threatened with execution as a traitor, 
and the letters which he wrote to his 
friends were suppressed. At length the 
English Government resolved to send 
the prisoners back to America — not, 
however, as freemen, but to exchange 
them for English soldiers taken prisoners 
by the Revolutionary army. 



1 08 ON THE TH RESHOLD OF HOME RULE . 

"On the passage out, the ship called at 
Cork, where the people showed the great- 
est possible sympathy for the brave and 
ill-treated American patriots, and aided 
them as far as possible. Allen himself 
says: 

"It was soon rumored in Cork that I 
was on board the Solebay, with a num- 
ber of prisoners from America. Upon 
which Messrs. Clark and Hays, merchants, 
and a number of other benevolently dis- 
posed gentlemen contributed largely to 
the relief and support of the prisoners, 
who were thirty-four in number and in 
very needy circumstances. A suit of 
clothes, from head to foot, including an 
overcoat or surtout and two shirts, were 
bestowed on each of them. My suit 
I received in superfine broadcloths, suf- 
ficient for two jackets and two pairs of 
breeches, overplus of a suit throughout; 
eight fine Holland shirts and socks, ready- 
made with a number of pairs of silk and 
worsted hose, two pairs of shoes, two 
beaver hats, one of which was sent me 
richly laced with gold by James Bonwell. 

"The Irish gentlemen, furthermore, 
gave a large gratuity of wines of the best 
sort, spirits, gin, loaf and brown sugar, 
tea, and chocolate, with a large round of 
pickled beef and a number of fat turkeys, 
with many other articles for my sea stores, 
too tedious to mention here. To the 
privates they bestowed on each man two 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 109 

pounds of tea and six pounds of brown 
sugar. These articles were received on 
board at a time when the captain and 
first lieutenant were gone on shore. As 
this munificence was so unexpected and 
plentiful, I may add needful, it impressed 
on my mind the highest sense of gratitude 
towards my benefactors; for I was not 
only supplied with the necessaries and 
conveniences of life, but with the grand- 
eurs and superfluities. 

"Mr. Hays, one of the donators before 
mentioned, came on board and behaved 
in the most obliging manner, telling me 
that he hoped my troubles were past and 
that the gentlemen of Cork determined 
to make my seastores equal to that of 
the captain of the Solebay. He made an 
offer of live stock to me, but I knew this 
would be denied; and, to crown all, 
did send me by another person fifty 
guineas; but I could not reconcile re- 
ceiving the whole to my feelings, as it 
might have the appearance of avarice, 
and, therefore, received but seven guin- 
eas, only. 

"I am confident, not only from the 
exercise of the present well-timed gen- 
erosity, but from a large acquaintance 
with gentlemen of this nation, that as 
a people they excel in liberality and 
bravery. Two days after the receipt 
of the aforesaid donations the captain 
came on board full of envy towards the 



1 10 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

prisoners, and swore by all that was good 
'that the damned American rebels should 
not be feasted at this rate by the damned 
rebels of Ireland.' He therefore, took 
away all my liquors before mentioned, 
all the tea and sugar given to the prison- 
ers, and confiscated them to the use of 
the ship's crew. 

"Our clothing was not taken away, but 
the privates were forced to do duty on 
board. Soon after this there came a boat 
to the side of the ship and the captain 
of the Solebay asked a gentleman in it 
in my hearing what his business was, who 
answered that he was sent to deliver some 
sea stores to Colonel Allen, which he said 
were sent from Dublin, but the captain 
damned him heartily, ordering him away 
from the ship and would not suffer him 
to deliver the stores. 

"I was furthermore informed that the 
gentlemen in Cork requested of the cap- 
tain that I might be allowed to come into 
the city and that they would be respon- 
sible I should return to the frigate at a 
given time, which was denied them." 

"The prisoners after leaving Cork were 
first brought to New York, whence they 
were transfered to Halifax and kept in 
a prison ship there until scurvy broke 
out among them owing to the bad food 
they received, when, after great efforts 
to secure better treatment, they were 
removed to the town jail. After a time 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. Ill 

they were again conveyed to New York, 
where Allen was allowed to go on parole 
within certain narrow limits, and at 
length was exchanged for an English 
colonel." 



In view of the above facts, we are not sur- 
prised to find America duly grateful and 
returning in full measure, on the occasion of 
the passage through the Commons of the 
Home Rule Bill, her expressions of sympathy 
and respect. 

The Irish World of recent date, well voices 
the conditions existing between the two 
countries as follows: — 

"The bond of sympathy that has ever 
existed between America and Ireland 
has generated in both countries senti- 
ments of mutual regard that find ex- 
pression whenever it is a question con- 
cerning the interests of either. When 
the Continental Congress addressed an 
appeal to the Irish people for their moral 
support in the "times that tried men's 
souls," it had no doubt as to the response 
that appeal would elicit. Bemjamin 
Franklin already had borne this testimony, 
"All Ireland is strongly in favor of the 
American cause." It was not, then, to 
an indifferent people that the Continental 
Congress appealed. "Your Parliament," 
to quote its own words, "had done us no 
wrong. You have been friendly to the 
rights of mankind, and we acknowledge 



112 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

with pleasure and gratitude that the 
Irish Nation has produced patriots who 
have highly distinguished themselves in 
the cause of humanity and America. 

"Accept our most grateful acknowledg- 
ments for the friendly dispositions you 
have already shown us." 

Ireland was never a fair weather friend 
in the case of America. When the clouds 
lowered over this country she ever proved 
staunch and true. The news of disas- 
trous defeats to the Union cause during 
our Civil War were never hailed in 
Ireland with rapturous cheers as they 
were in England. 

And now when Ireland's star is begin- 
ning to rise above the horizon, it is only 
right that America, remembering those 
days of 'storm and stress' in which she 
had Irish sympathy in unstinted measure, 
should send words of cheer across the 
Atlantic to a sister nation whose friend- 
ship has never grown cold. Representa- 
tive Goodwin of Arkansas gave formal 
expression to the sentiments of the Amer- 
ican people when he offered this resolu- 
tion on the passage of the Irish Home 
Rule Bill in the House of Commons: 

"Whereas, the people of Ireland for 
many years have been struggling for 
Home Rule only to have from time to 
time their aspirations blighted; and, 
whereas, their struggles for liberty have 
appealed to all true Americans who love 




T. P. O'CONNOR, M. P. 
Scotland Division Liverpool. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 113 

freedom; and, whereas, the House of 
Commons on yesterday by a vote of one 
hundred and ten (110) majority passed 
the Home Rule Bill for Ireland: 

"Therefore, resolved that the House of 
Representatives of the American Con- 
gress congratulate the people of Ireland 
and the British House of Commons upon 
the passage through the Commons of 
the Home Rule Bin, and that the Secre- 
tary of State be requested to forward a 
copy of these resolutions to the Honorable 
Henry H. Asquith, Prime Minister; Hon- 
orable John E. Redmond, and the Hon- 
orable Augustine Birrell, Chief Secretary 
for Ireland." 

The resolution offered by Congressman 
Goodwin may be designated the official 
expression of the National House of 
Representatives on the question of Ire- 
land's claim to the management of her 
own affairs. It was supplemented by a 
cablegram of congratulation to Mr. Red- 
mond sent by Congressman Michael 
Donahue of Philadelphia at the request 
of a large number of his fellow members 
of Congress. It reads as follows: 

"Friends of Ireland in American Con- 
gress rejoice in triumph of Home Rule 
and heartily congratulate you and the 
other champions of freedom." 

This cablegram is of value as showing 
the personal interest the Congressmen 
whose views it expresses, take in the Irish 



1 14 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

cause. With the resolution they have 
voted for previously, it will have its 
moral effect on the other side of the 
Atlantic. 

Resolution and cablegram furnish in- 
disputable evidence of American sym- 
pathy with Ireland in this her hour of 
triumph. 



Chapter X 

IRELAND'S STRUGGLE FOR NATIONAL 
LIFE. 

It is consoling and cheering to the Irish 
to know that in this hour of their triumph 
they have the sympathy and good will of all 
the world, and especially of the American 
people. 

The following brief account from a 
Philadelphia paper, the North American, of 
recent date, of a few of Ireland's chief griev- 
ances, and of the glorious and long contin- 
ued struggle she has made, and is still making, 
to redeem herself — the longest contest in his- 
tory — will I trust have special interest for the 
reader at this time. 

IRELAND'S VICTORY OVER TORYISM. 

The most magnificent example in his- 
tory of the persistence of an idea is 
Ireland's fight for Self-Government. For 
more than seven centuries the people 
of that country have been struggling 
for the right to make their own laws, for 
relief from a system of alien rule, econom- 
ic injustice and legislative blundering 
without parallel in the record of Nations. 
The story of that long, dark period has 
been summed up in a few brief and ter- 
rible words by a Scotch Liberal member 
of Parliament: 

115 



1 16 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

"Seven centuries of rapine and violence. 
Carelessness alternating with ferocity. 
Not a gleam of humanity nor of political 
wisdom. Not even the wisdom of the 
peasant who takes care of his beast lest 
it perish." 

During all this night of wrong the Na- 
tional spirit has never been extinguished. 
It survives the twelfth-century raids of 
the Saxon, the ruthless onslaughts of 
Plantagenet soldiery, the pillage and 
plantations of Tudor and Stuart sove- 
reigns, the vengeance of Cromwell and 
William. It was not quenched by the 
Penal Laws of the eighteenth century, 
nor by the misgovernment, injustice and 
famines of the nineteenth. It lived 
through the more recent years of cruel 
indifference, took strength from the meas- 
ures of tardy justice granted as the re- 
sult of interminable rebellion, and ex- 
ists today not only in greater vigor than 
ever before, but as the conquering force 
of a people soon to be free. 

As there has been no National question 
in history of like vitality, so there is none 
that equals this in stirring world sym- 
pathy. | The efforts of the present British 
Government to do justice to Ireland are 
supported not alone by the public opinion 
of independent Nations such as the 
United States, but by the free depen- 
dencies of the crown. In Parliamentary 
representation all of Wales, three-fourths 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 117 

of Scotland and half of England are for 
Home Rule, while for years there has not 
been a session of the Legislature of Cana- 
da and Australia which has not urged 
this measure. The Bill which passed the 
House of Commons on January 16 has 
the indorsement of the whole Empire, 
except that part represented by an invet- 
erate Toryism and the devotees of a 
medieval prejudice. 

The measure passed the House of 
Commons by a vote of 367 to 257; the 
majority was made up of 248 Liberals, 
82 Irish Nationalists and 37 members of 
the Labor Party. The Tories had forced 
164 separate divisions upon it, but they 
met an average government majority of 
115. The Lords will throw out the Bill. 
It will be repassed by the Commons and 
again rejected by the Upper Chamber. 
Then, under a law adopted a couple of 
years ago, the Bill will be passed a third 
time by the Commons — provided the 
Liberal Government remains in power — 
and will become effective without con- 
sent of the Peers. 

What this measure will remedy is a sys- 
tem of misrule which grew up during cen- 
turies of conquest and injustice. The 
monstrous evils of the land system, which 
inflicted upon successive generations the 
horrors of poverty, cruelty and famine, 
have been largely eliminated by a suc- 
cession of remedial Acts, the first of which 



118 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

was passed in 1887, and the most com- 
prehensive in 1903. But these measures 
of economic justice, beneficial as they 
were, left the country groaning under the 
intolerable burden of a system of govern- 
ment which impartial writers have thus 
described. 

"The government of Ireland is the 
most inefficient in the whole world." — 
Lord Roseberry. 

"Dublin Castle is not merely a foreign 
power; it is at once hostile, anti-democrat- 
ic, mercenary and irresponsible." — L. 
Paul-Dubois, French historian. 

"Irish administration is the most cost- 
ly and least efficient in the world." — 
The Earl of Dunraven. 

"During these years (since the Act of 
Union of 1800) the governed were, in the 
main, helots and slaves; the governors 
were, to a large extent, callous and heart- 
less tyrants. Until Gladstone arose, no 
subject people had ever been more basely 
treated or neglected by a conqueror." — 
T. W. Russell, Ulster Member of Par- 
liament. 

These references are to the nineteenth 
century, during which, it is admitted, 
much was done to remedy the wrongs 
of preceding centuries. And it must 
be remembered that Ireland for a period 
did have her own Parliament. From 
1782 until 1800 her own legislators — al- 
beit the majority of the population were 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 119 

excluded on religious grounds — sat in 
Dublin and made her laws and historians 
agree that during that period the Nation 
knew for the first time the blessings of 
peace and prosperity. 

THE FOULEST PAGE OF BRITISH 
HISTORY. 

Then came the forced Union in 1800. 
Against the vehement protests of all 
classes and both religions, the Act was 
passed by bribery more lavish and shame- 
less than was ever resorted to before or 
since. No less than $7,500,000 was ex- 
pended in buying votes, in addition to 
twenty-two Irish peerages, six English 
peerages and twenty-two promotions, in 
the Irish nobility. "There is no blacker 
nor fouler transaction in the history of 
man," declared Gladstone, "than the 
making of the Union between Great 
Britain and Ireland." 

Self-Government, even in a restricted 
measure, was thus destroyed in Ireland, 
and England took upon herself the re- 
sponsibility of administering affairs. 
What has been the record of the one 
hundred and twelve years? Until the 
present generation it was a hopeless suc- 
cession of complaints, indifference, re- 
bellion, coercion and, finally, vacillating 
and grudging concessions. "Your oppres- 
sions," said Lord John Russell to his 
countrymen, "have taught the Irish to 



120 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

hate your concessions, to brave you. 
You have exhibited to them how scanty 
was the stream of your bounty, how full 
the tribute of your fear." 

After the Union Came a Century of 
Starvation. 

It was twenty-nine years after the 
Union before the pledge of Catholic Em- 
ancipation was redeemed . 1 1 was not until 
1869 that the burden of an Established 
Church was removed from the backs of 
millions of non-adherents. The first 
measure for the relief of tenants, who had 
been fighting starvation for a century, 
was passed in 1870. The first Home 
Rule Bill was introduced in 1886, and the 
first one to pass the House of Commons 
was passed in 1893. 

The evils of misrule are written indeli- 
bly in the economic history of the coun- 
try. The population, which in 1801 was 
5,500,000 and in 1841 had grown to 8,- 
175,000, in 1901 had shrunk to less than 
4,500,000. During the latter half of the 
nineteenth century, 4,000,000 of the Irish 
people fled from their land. By every 
test that could be applied the system of 
government was proved a ghastly failure. 

Yet a considerable Parliamentary min- 
ority still stands in stolid opposition to 
the giving of Self-Government to Ire- 
land. "You cannot impose this law with- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 121 

out bloodshed!" shouts the Tory leader. 
"The men of Ulster are ready to give up 
their lives at the hands of British sol- 
diers!" This, of course, is the veriest 
fustian. The speaker would like to for- 
get that in 1782 Ulster rebels stood for 
the freedom of the Irish Parliament, and 
that in 1798 many of them were in arms. 
He would like the world to believe that 
Ulster is unanimous for Toryism, whereas 
seventeen of the thirty-three members 
from that Province are Home Rulers. 

The Ulster Fiction of Religion. 

The strongest argument of the "Tories" 
is the appeal to religious prejudice. As 
a fact, this fiction that Nationalism is a 
question of religion is refuted by its own 
history. Of the heroes of the National 
cause, the most noted have been Protes- 
tants — from the days of Grattan, Fitz- 
gerald, Tone and Emmet, of Mitchel, 
Davis, and Smith O'Brien and Butt and 
Parnell, down to the present time, when 
the ruling Party in the British Parlia- 
ment is overwhelmingly non-Catholic and 
favorable to Home Rule. It is not for 
religion that Toryism fights, but for 
special privilege, as it fought Disestab- 
lishment, Tenant Right, Land Purchase, 
extension of the Franchise, Local Self- 
Government and every other reform de- 
manded. 



1 22 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

And since the fight is for special privi- 
lege, it can end in but one way. It is 
possible that Toryism may be able, 
through obstruction by the Lords, to 
hold up the Bill until a political change 
overturns the Liberal Government. But 
the final result is inevitable. This is the 
day of Democracy, and British Toryism 
can no more permanently withhold jus- 
tice from Ireland than American Toryism 
can continue to exploit the people of this 
country. 



Ireland's cries for justice have gone out to 
all the ends of the earth, and the people have 
heard her with respect and loving sympathy, 
so much so, that a flood of public opinion has 
been aroused great enough to compel even 
England to bow before it, and with the glo- 
rious result that one of the great British 
parties is now endeavoring to right the wrong 
of ages, and has just passed through the Com- 
mons the New Charter of Irish liberty! And 
if the Liberal party should retain power until 
May, 1914, it will become a law, notwith- 
standing the Lords' opposition! 

The fact is, Ireland bars the way and must 
be heard. Hers is the great question of 
questions that will not down. A corre- 
spondent of an Irish paper, writing in January 
last on how Ireland ties up all British legis- 
lation and insists on having her demands 
heard, says: — 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 1 23 

A cynical student of British institu- 
tions might say that the modern House of 
Commons is permitted to discuss one ques- 
tion only — the Irish question. For the 
last thirty years or so British statesman- 
ship has never been able to lose sight of 
that topic for any length of time. Topics 
of the moment there have been, but here 
is the question of questions, which shall 
last as long as the Union lasts. It may 
not be eclipsed or obscured or thrust on 
one side; forever it seems to rise above 
British interests as the waves rise out of 
the sea. 

No matter how independent of the 
Irish vote new Governments appeared 
to be, the old, old question has always 
succeeded in occupying a great slice of 
Parliamentary time. No Government 
has ever been able to ignore Ireland as a 
factor in the British political situation. 
Deaf or hostile they mostly have been to 
the demands of Ireland, but dumb or 
pliant Ireland has never been. 

The Power of the Irish Vote. 

Tory Prime Ministers, signing coercion 
proclamations, may affect to scorn the 
Irish Party as an insignificant voting 
machine that strong Governments must 
ignore. Yet they have all felt the power 
of the Irish vote in Parliament, and shud- 
dered beneath the Irish frown. The par- 



1 24 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

iahs of yesterday's Parliaments are the 
makers and masters of today's. 

The old quarrel between England and 
Ireland gradually shaped itself into a 
battle to destroy or to preserve the Union ; 
and the small nation has beaten the great. 
At the close of the struggle there is no 
harm in saying that in the campaigns 
and tactics of Parliamentary warfare 
little Ireland has always been able to 
hoodwink and outflank proud England. 

Ireland, Ireland; Always Ireland! 

This train of thought suggests itself 
by the fact that as before the Christmas 
holidays the last word in Parliament 
was of Ireland, so was the first word when 
the House resumed on Monday. 

And, indeed, during the week the 
attention of Parliament has been mon- 
opolized by the Report Stage of the Home 
Rule Bill. 1912 closed upon a House 
debating Home Rule, and 1913 opened 
with discussion on the same subject. 



A stranger, on becoming acquainted with 
English government in Ireland, would say 
at once that its sole and only object was to 
exploit Ireland for the exclusive benefit of 
English interests, and that regardless of every 
consideration of justice and right! She took 
the lands of Ireland from their rightful owners 
and gave them to her own adventurers and 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 1 25 

partisans. Irish churches and church lands 
were taken in like manner from the ancient 
church; and given to the brand new church, 
by law established and founded by Henry 
the Eighth and his mild and gentle daughter, 
the virgin queen , Elizabeth ! Both noted char- 
acters in their way, but not for the purity 
and sanctity of their lives surely! 

The old faith was banned, education was 
made a crime, death was the penalty for 
priest and teacher! Irish manufactures of 
all kinds were deliberately and systematically 
destroyed lest they should compete with 
those of England! Ireland was made a purely 
agricultural country that she might serve 
as a store house for England; in a word, she 
was designedly made poor! and kept so! 
partly that England might be thereby en- 
riched , and at the same time that Ireland might 
be the more easily controlled. The weaker 
country has not suffered in vain however; she 
has made herself felt in a thousand ways, and 
made the lot of the oppressor a hard one, 
and at times dangerous! She has always 
been ready and anxious to strike when the 
opportunity came, and, weak as she is, has 
tried at times to make an opportunity. 

And this struggle she has continued for 
centuries; long and weary centuries; gaining 
a little here, losing a little there; but in the 
main advancing, especially during the last 
thirty years or so. During this time, under 
such glorious leaders as Parnell, Davitt, 
Dillon, and now under the matchless John 



126 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

Redmond, the cause has been rushing on like 
a mighty torrent, sweeping all before it, 
even the one time Orange stronghold, Deny! 
So great was the momentum of the movement, 
it has actually waked up the lords long 
enough to vote against it, but, to their credit 
be it said, by a much smaller majority than 
in 1893! 

And now we can see the dawn of Ireland's 
coming morn of liberty, of good will, of peace 
after all the long, long strife! Just here it 
seems to me appropriate that I should copy a 
beautiful little poem by the new English poet, 
Alfred Noyes: 

THE DAWN OF PEACE. 

By A If red Noyes 

Dreams are they? But ye cannot stay them, 

Or thrust the dawn back for one hour; 
Truth, Love and Justice, if ye slay them, 

Return with more than earthly power; 
Strive, if ye will, to seal the fountains 

That send the Spring thro' leaf and spray; 
Drive back the sun from the Eastern mountains; 

Then — bid this mightier movement stay. 

The hour of Peace is come! The nations 

From East to West have heard a cry — 
"Through all earth's blood-red generations 

By hate and slaughter climbed thus high, 
Here — on this height — still to aspire, 

One only path remains untrod, 
One path of love and peace climbs higher! 

Make straight the highway for our God." 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 127 

It may be said of the long drawn out strug- 
gle between the two nations, it is the only 
instance in history where the supposedly 
conquered and subdued nation has kept up 
the fight for over seven hundred years, in 
one way or another, and where the weaker 
and injured party has won, by moral means 
alone! by appealing to and arousing the con- 
science of the world! It may also be said 
that Ireland has not, as yet, completely won 
her battle , and that it is too soon to count the 
chickens before they are hatched. In a 
sense this is true, but Ireland has won so 
much during the last thirty years, not only 
for herself, but for the British masses as well, 
that while Home Rule may be delayed, it 
cannot be permanently defeated. The Irish 
party will no doubt in the future, as in the 
past, at least as long as they have the present 
representation in Parliament, hold the balance 
of power and make legislation in the House of 
Commons difficult, if not impossible, until 
Ireland's demands in the main are granted! 



Chapter XI. 
PREJUDICE INJECTED 

Doubtless the reader has begun to think 
I have forgotten Mr. Brooks' articles to which 
I called attention in an earlier part of this 
work. Indeed I have not, but I have been 
led into a little digression by reason of the 
great events in the British House of Commons 
recently, and among them, of course, the 
passage of the Home Rule Bill. 

If the Bill should become a law — and we 
seem within sight of the promised land al- 
ready, despite the Lords' rejection — it will do 
much to right the wrongs of ages, to destroy 
the old time enmities and hatreds and bring 
two neighboring peoples to feelings of mutual 
respect and friendship. It will bridge over 
the bloody chasm of injustice, crime and wrong 
and establish peace where before there was 
only strife, heart burnings and bloodshed. 

After reading some of Mr. Brooks' very 
friendly Irish articles — and quite a number of 
them are friendly indeed — one is apt to think 
he is one of the last persons in the world to 
be tinctured with the spirit of intolerance, 
sectarianism or anything bordering on Orange- 
ism; and yet, I am sorry to say, even he is not 
wholly free from it. After assailing British 
rule in Ireland bitterly, and at times savagely, 
as I have shown, he suddenly seems to realize 
that perhaps he has been too severe. At 
any rate he begins to try to divide the re- 

128 




HON. JOSEPH DEVLIN, M. P. 
West Belfast. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 129 

sponsibility , and finds, as he thinks, a scape- 
goat in the faith of the Irish people, and says: 

"It is not until one reaches London- 
derry and Belfast that one feels oneself 
in contact with the atmosphere and prob- 
lems of a modern industrial city. Lon- 
donderry, with its large coasting trade, 
its shirt-making industry, its fisheries, 
ship-yards, iron and brass foundries, 
flour-mills, breweries and distilleries, 
gives out an instant impression of confi- 
dence, energy and success; and the in- 
dustrial record of Belfast, the Chicago 
of Ireland, constitutes one of the greatest 
and most inspiring achievements in the 
history of commerce. These two towns, 
in tone and spirit, in their social structure, 
their instinctive ways of looking at things, 
and their economic formation, stand in a 
category of their own and have little or 
no affinity with Limerick, Cork, Water- 
ford or Dublin ; while the gap that sep- 
arates them from the smaller urban 
centres, that except in Ireland would not 
for a moment aspire to the name of 
towns, is the gap of the entire industrial 
revolution. 



There we have it! It is the Catholic Faith 
after all that is the cause of Ireland's troubles, 
or at least a large part of them, This is the 
only inference which can be drawn from the 
above, and evidently, the only one he wanted 



130 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

drawn. Here it is clearly intimated, that if 
the Irish people were Protestants, or at least 
non-Catholic, all would be well; and the 
country would be rich, prosperous, contented 
and happy, like Protestant Ulster! 

Notwithstanding his general intention to 
be fair and just, and his desire at least at 
times to place the responsibility for Ireland's 
troubles where it justly belongs, on British 
misgovernment ; and that he has himself 
bravely done elsewhere, he now begins to 
hem and haw, and so he trots out the old- 
time stalking horse that has so long done 
duty for English apologists in Ireland, the 
Catholic faith! 

This charge has been so often refuted, and 
by so many distinguished men, some of them 
non-Catholic and non-Irish, among them the 
late Lord Salisbury, one time Tory Prime 
Minister of Great Britain, that I am greatly 
surprised such an able and at times such a 
fair man as Mr. Brooks' is should descend 
to it. 

Now let us see whether there is any truth 
in the so often alleged greater wealth and 
prosperity of Ulster, in comparison with her 
sister Provinces. 

This argument has been used so frequently 
that the ordinary man, the man in the street, 
who has neither time nor interest enough to 
find out the facts for himself, accepts it as 
gospel and lets it go at that. But it is not 
true. It is one of those pleasant little fictions 
that has so long done duty as an argument 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 131 

when nothing better could be found. Let 
us for a few moments get away from dreams 
and fancies and look at the facts as given 
in the official government figures. 

"A year ago Mr. MacVeagh, M. P., of 
the Irish Party, quoted Rateable Valua- 
tions per head of the four Provinces, in 
which Leinster held first place. "Taken 
by counties," Mr. MacVeagh went on to 
state, "the rateable valuation per head 
is higher in no less than thirteen Counties 
in Leinster and Munster than in the high- 
est County in Ulster." 

"The argument of "wealthy Ulster 
against Home Rule" is further confirmed 
as an "absurd fallacy" by figures which 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer has re- 
cently furnished at the request of Mr. 
Flavin, M. P., (also a member of the 
Irish Party), and quoted by the London 
correspondent of the Dublin Freeman. 
These show that the amount of Income 
Tax per head in the Nationalist cities of 
Dublin, Cork and Limerick is far greater 
than that paid in Belfast and Derry. 
More remarkable still, the correspondent 
observes, is the fact that "the amount 
paid per head in Cork — the capital of 
the 'thriftless South' — is higher than in 
Belfast 'of all the rich.' Even Limerick 
with less of a population than Derry pays 
more in Income Tax." 

"So the argument of superior wealth 
is proved to be as much of a fake and 



132 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

fraud as any of other points against 
Home Rule." 



If Ulster be more prosperous than her sister 
Provinces, as alleged by Mr. Brooks and his 
school, how account for the fact, for fact it 
is, that emigration is as great from there, in 
proportion to population, as from Catholic 
parts. Indeed for the month of January, 1913, 
the last available, the report says: Of the total 
emigration from all Ireland 607, Ulster sup- 
plied more than one-half or 311 ! 

Belgium is one of the most Catholic coun- 
tries in the world, distinctively Catholic; a 
country where a larger proportion of the 
people are Catholic than even in Ireland; 
where Protestants are few and far between; 
yet she is one of the most prosperous coun- 
tries in the world! and one of the most truly 
progressive; a thriving, prosperous and con- 
tented country; a very beehive of industrial 
activity of almost every kind and nature! 
In Belgium there is scarcely any poverty, and 
none at all of the appalling kind that seeths 
and reeks in the large cities of Great Britain, 
especially in London, Liverpool, Manchester, 
Birmingham and Glasgow. 

In Mr. McKay's work entitled, "The Social 
Condition of the English people," quoting 
Dr. Channing's "Duty of Free States." he says: 
"The condition of the lower classes in England 
at the present moment is a mournful comment 
on English institutions and civilization. The 
multitude is depressed to a degree of ignorance, 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 133 

want and misery which must touch every 
heart not made of stone! In the civilized 
world there are fewer sadder spectacles than 
the present contrast of unbounded wealth 
and luxury, with the starvation of thousands 
and tens of thousands, misery, famine and 
brutal degradation, in the neighborhood 
and presence of stately mansions, that ring 
with gaiety and dazzle with pomp and un- 
bounded profusion which shocks us as no 
wretchedness does! 

This was written many years ago, it is true, 
but it is well known that the conditions have 
as a whole grown steadily worse since the 
above was written; that the gulf between 
the wealthy and the poor, the masses, has 
deepened and widened as shown in "Darkest 
England and the Way Out," by the late 
Gen. Booth, founder of the Salvation army. 
It is almost needless to say there is nothing 
in any Catholic country in the world, not 
even in Ireland, to equal the horrible, the 
almost incredible destitution, misery and 
wretchedness therein described! 

The distinguished British statesman, Joseph 
Chamberlain, stated before the Tariff Com- 
mission some years ago that there was no 
country in the world where so large a propor- 
tion of the people were so near the verge of 
starvation as in Great Britain ! 

The Catholic faith is surely not the cause 
of such awful conditions, nor can it be for 
that of Ireland. Where then is the cause of 
Ireland's backward conditions? for cause there 



134 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

must be somewhere. All the world knows 
what the trouble is, and where it is; and Mr. 
Brooks does, too, when he allows his sense of 
justice and right to have full reign, as he 
does at least in half a dozen places in his 
papers; and then he puts it on English mis- 
government, as does everybody else. 

If British rule in Ireland, were to be dis- 
continued tomorrow, some of the evil effects 
would undoubtedly remain, and that prob- 
ably for generations. 

You may break, you may shatter 
The vase if you will, 
The scent of the roses 
Will hang around it still. 

And so with serfdom or slavery, the marks 
made by the chains of servitude will remain, 
and affect, more or less, the people for many 
long years. Take landlordism, with its 
appalling record of evil of almost every possi- 
ble nature: — The fear of it, the terror of it, 
is frozen into the very marrow of the people's 
bones, and cannot be gotten out in a day, or 
two. 

Their fear of some petty despot, some village 
tyrant, dressed up in a little brief authority, 
will not down at once. Though the thing it- 
self has gone, the shadow still remains. 
Strike off the shackles from the slave, but the 
limbs that have been bound so long have 
become stiff and awkward for want of use. 
And this applies, not only to the physical 
man, but to the mind also, to the Godlike 
part of him. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 135 

Ye see yon birkie ca'd a lord, 
Wha struts and stares and a that, 
Though hundred worship at his word, 
He's but a coof for a that. 
Yes, the birkie landlord has had his day, 
and a long and terrible one it has been; and 
so have all the representatives of British 
authority, all those who ground the people 
under their iron heel; but they are passing 
away, like a bad dream, never to return, 
never. It seems almost too good to be true, 
but it is true nevertheless. 

But even now the representatives of this 
vile system are permitted to use the most 
inflammatory and riotous language, without 
let or hindrance. 

Bonar Law, the leader of the Unionist 
party in the House of Commons, tells the 
people of Great Britain that if Home Rule 
be granted Ulster will not accept it, that she 
will wade in blood first! 

Let us suppose John Redmond, or some 
other representative of the Irish national 
party, were to use similar language in case 
the Home Rule Bill were defeated, what 
would happen? And the Nationalist party, 
be it remembered, has back of it practically 
the whole of Ireland, Protestant as well as 
Catholic, all except a small faction the Orange 
Society. The members of this organization 
have grown fat and arrogant at the national 
crib; have held substantially all the offices of 
honor and emolument for centuries, and are 
now fierce in the opposition to the Nation's 



1 36 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

demands for justice, fearing they will be 
compelled to surrender the spoils! 

What a hue and cry would have been raised 
if Ireland's representatives had used that or 
similar language; and how every little bigot 
would rush into print or on the platform to tell 
us how completely unfitted for self-govern- 
ment the Irish were! Perhaps one reason the 
government has not prosecuted them is 
because no one who knows them takes them 
seriously. These valiant trencher men are 
always out for the old flag and an appro- 
priation especially the appropriation! They 
have threatened time and again to wade 
knee deep in blood, in fact every time their 
ascendency or their fees were endangered. 
Some time before the late Queen Victoria 
came to the throne, fearing she was not a 
dyed in the wool Protestant, of the Orange 
stripe, because her mother, the Duchess of 
Kent, was known to be a Catholic, our Orange 
friends made deep threats to kick her crown 
into the Boyne. They thought better of it 
however, and let her wear it in peace. 

When the late Mr. Gladstone was about to 
disestablish the Protestant church in Ireland, 
in 1869 I think, they muttered and talked 
about ripping the Empire to pieces, smashing 
it to smithereens, etc. Mr Gladstone went 
on with his work however, and finished it; 
the Orange heroes remembering that 
He who fights and runs away, 
May live to fight another day, 
and that whether discretion be the better 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 137 

part of valor or not, it is a very wise thing, for 
even a warrior, to have around at times. 

But they have saved all their ammunition 
and arms and valor for the fight against 
Home Rule! And now that self-government 
for Ireland is coming, we must look out for 
squalls for our long suffering friends have 
reached the limit of endurance, and will not 
leave a stone upon a stone of the British 
Empire! The Orangeman's forefathers, who 
received the lands of the famous clans of the 
O' Neils and O'Donnels, came as receivers of 
stolen goods, a little over two hundred years 
ago, from England and Scotland, largely 
from the latter country; and the Orange- 
men have ever since lived up, or down, to the 
reputation of their progenitors! In justice 
to our Orange friends, it should be stated 
however, that the forefathers of some of these 
same men were, during the existence of the 
Irish Parliament from 1782 until 1800, and 
particularly during the brief attempt to over- 
throw British rule in 1798, among the most 
intense and ardent supporters of Irish nation- 
al rights, and large numbers of them freely 
gave up their lives in defence of Ireland's 
Nationality. This Orange wickedness is one 
of the evil outgrowths of British rule, a sort 
of by-product, propagated by the British 
to keep the people divided. It is so fierce, so 
intense in its love for liberty for itself alone, 
that like the French, Italian, and Portugese 
Atheists, it has none left for those who differ 
from it, and would if possible destroy all 
such. 



138 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

Lest it be thought I have in any way exagger- 
ated the intolerance of the Orangemen, either 
as a society or as individuals, I here quote 
an interview given by Mr. Marshall Tillie 
of Londonderry, a gentleman of great local 
influence, a Protestant and an anti-Home 
Ruler. 

"I am a Unionist," says Mr. Tillie. 
"I do not believe that home rule is either 
necessary or desirable for Ireland. I am 
of opinion that the country is settling 
down under the good effect of Mr. 
Wyndham's land legislation, and if we 
could banish politics and religious ani- 
mosities from Ireland for 20 years we 
should be as quiet as Kent or Cornwall. 
"But I stop here. I am not only an 
Irishman, I am a citizen of the United 
Kingdom, and if the Parliament of the 
United Kingdom, with the assent of the 
crown, passes a home rule bill into law 
I am prepared to make the best of it, and 
for that I have been boycotted." 

"I refused to sign their silly 'covenant' 
proceedings by which Sir Edward Carson 
and his friends have made Ulster Union- 
ism a laughing stock, and above all — and 
this has been the worst of my crime — 
— out of the 1500 people I employ at 
least 1300 are Roman Catholics." 

"But do I understand you to say, Mr. 
Tillie," asked the correspondent, "that 
Derry Unionists think it wrong to employ 
Catholics." 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 139 

"Undoubtedly they do," was the reply, 
"and any man who does so freely and 
cares nothing about the religions of the 
people he employs so long as they render 
him good service is marked down. That's 
why I intended to stand at this 
election, as a protest against this narrow 
bigotry and intolerance. I think it is 
time that this old and cruel ascendency 
spirit was attacked, and attacked by 
those who believe in Protestantism and 
Conservatism. It has poisoned the whole 
of our national life in the north of Ireland 
for centuries." 



In the words of Mr. Tillie, this wicked spirit 
of ascendency, of sectarian hate, of intolerance 
and bigotry, has poisoned the national life 
for centuries. It is a monster that should be 
replaced by a spirit of tolerance, of justice, 
of mutual respect and fair play for all. 

As I have already intimated, our Orange 
friend is as loud and persistent an office seeker 
as some of our American politicians, the lovers 
of their kind, who place themselves in the 
hands of their friends, to be sacrificed on the 
altar of their country. He and the Union- 
ists generally have held nearly all the govern- 
ment offices so long, and especially in his 
own section of the country, that the thought 
of losing his pull and his influence under 
Home Rule, has driven him frantic, and turned 
him into a furious and loud mouthed boaster. 

Home Rule once established, and knowing 



140 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

he can have only his own share of government 
pickings, he will in all probability become a well 
disposed citizen. 



Chapter XII 
DESTRUCTION OF IRISH INDUSTRIES. 

In referring to Mr. Brooks and his articles 
entitled "New Ireland," I stated that whenever 
he gets away from the English atmosphere, as 
he often does, he very quickly shows us the 
source of Ireland's ills. 

Here is his graphic picture of the destruc- 
tion of Irish industries, a destruction that was 
systematically planned and carried out in 
the most cruel and cold blooded manner, 
until each and every industry was destroyed, 
agriculture alone excepted. 

In the dark days of protection, says Mr. 
Brooks, England deliberately strangled Ire- 
land's nascent manufactures, woolens, glass, 
cotton, sail cloth, sugar refining, shipping — all 
went down, crushed out by legislation. Ire- 
land has never recovered from that succession 
of staggering blows. They killed not merely 
her industries, but something more valuable, 
they killed at the same time, or at least 
fatally impaired, the industrial instinct and 
the character, the aptitude, and the kind of 
self discipline and self confidence that are so 
essential to industrial progress. 

Under such conditions is it any wonder that 
Ireland lags behind? It would be strange if 
she did not, in fact a miracle. And yet while 
bad begins, worse remains behind, as we shall 
presently see. 

141 



142 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

The effect of these wicked and infamous 
measures lasted down to the American Revo- 
lution, the country sinking lower and lower, 
as one industry after another was killed, and 
the destitution of the people, always great 
under British control, became more intense 
and widespread than ever. During the war of 
American Independence, matters had come 
to a crisis. Finding England's hands tied 
by her troubles with American and European 
complications, the Protestants of Ireland raised 
a Volunteer Army of one hundred thousand 
men to repel a threatened invasion from 
France. It should be borne in mind that 
the Catholic people had no civic rights, no 
political power whatever, either in Great 
Britain or in Ireland, at the time, nor for 
forty-three years later, until Catholic Eman- 
cipation in 1829. Though shut out from 
actual participation in the Volunteer move- 
ment proper, they were, it is unnecessary to 
add, heart and soul with it in its aims and 
objects and gave it their hearty sympathy and 
such moral support as they possessed, as well 
as all the material aid in their power. This 
was more especially true after the Volunteers 
broadened out in their aims and purposes, 
including in their program of civic reforms, 
the removal of Catholic disabilities. The one 
great principal reform demanded by the 
Volunteers was the restoration of Ireland's 
Native Parliament. 

Under pressure of the American Revolu- 
tion and various threatening troubles in 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 143 

Europe, England reluctantly gave up her 
hold on Ireland, and in part restored to the 
Irish people the Parliament commonly known 
as the Irish, or Grattan, Parliament. 

IRELAND'S RESTORED PARLIAMENT. 

And now the Irish Nation, for the first time 
in centuries, stood on her own feet and had 
the power to legislate on Irish soil, on purely 
Irish matters. A new spirit seemed to take 
possession of the people at once, a kindlier, 
a more genial, and a more energetic spirit. 
Now mark what followed! The very first 
law enacted by the new parliament was 
a protective tariff. This was introduced 
by the then speaker, in a long and able 
speech, and after some very lively sessions 
was enacted into law, and went into op- 
eration April, 1783, and amidst the un- 
bounded rejoicings and enthusiasm of the 
whole people, Protestant and Catholic, rich 
and poor, high and low. For all believed in 
the statement made by the speaker, when 
introducing the bill into Parliament, that 
Ireland's awful poverty was largely due to 
the free entry of foreign goods into the country 
and chiefly those from England, in other 
words to what we now called. Free Trade. 
He also called attention to the fact that En- 
gland's great prosperity and her commanding 
position among the Nations were in a large 
measure due to her adherence to protection 
for many centuries. The beneficial effects of 



144 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

this protective policy was almost magical, 
and as sudden as it was great and far reaching. 
In a few short years, Ireland became one of 
the leading manufacturing countries in Eu- 
rope. Foreign workmen flocked in from all 
quarters of the world, each one bringing his 
own quota of skill and knowledge of some 
trade or calling. 

The country rapidly became a very bee- 
hive of industrial activity of almost every 
kind and description; peace and plenty, like 
guardian angels, hovered over the long time 
poverty stricken and distracted land. 

Lest it should be thought I have in any 
way overstated the flourishing condition of 
Ireland and of her people during the period 
I have been referring to, I have decided to 
insert here some statements from a few of 
the distinguished men of the times, some of 
them members of the Irish House of Com- 
mons, and others of the House of Lords, and 
therefore well acquainted with the conditions 
they describe. 

Lord Clare, speaking about 1792, that is, 
about nine years after Ireland had secured 
control of her own affairs, and telling of the 
wonderful transformation, the extraordinary 
change for the better, said: — 

"There is not a civilized country on the face 
of the earth which has advanced in culti- 
vation, in agriculture, in manufactures, with 
the same rapidity in the same period of time 
as Ireland." About the same time, Lord 
Plunkett, speaking on the same subject, says: 




PATRICK FORD 
Late Editor Irish World. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 145 

"Laws well enacted and administered, her 
revenues, her trade, her manufactures, thriv- 
ing beyond the hope or example of any other 
country of her extent." This be it remembered 
is from two of the prominent actors of the 
times. 

Sir Jonah Barrington, in his "Rise and fall 
of the Irish Nation," says: — "Ireland arose in 
wealth, in trade, in manufactures, and in 
every branch of industry that could enhance 
her value or render her people rich and pros- 
perous." 

Her nobles resided on their own domains, 
and expended their great fortunes among the 
Irish people. 

The Commons, also, dwelt on their own 
estates, and supported a tranquil and labo- 
rious tenantry. 

The peace of the country was perfect, no 
standing army, no militia, no police were 
needed for its preservation. The activity of 
the Volunteeers had suppressed crime in 
every district, religious prejudices were grad- 
ually dying out, every means of amelio- 
ration were in contemplation or in progress. 
To further confirm the above, if it needs any 
confirmation, I cite from Lord Grey, an 
English authority, as saying in 1799: — 

"Nothing in the progress of Scotland can 
parallel that of Ireland." And Lord Sheffield, 
another non-Irish witness, said in 1785, less 
than three years after Ireland had secured 
self government, "Perhaps the improvement 
of Ireland is as rapid as any country has ever 



146 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

experienced." To close this part of my sub- 
ject, I give Mr. O'Driscoll's account of the 
condition of the country during this, the 
golden era of Ireland's National life in com- 
paratively modern times. Under the fos- 
tering care of her new legislature, her trade in- 
creased, her manufactures flourished, her agri- 
culture climbed the mountains and spread 
itself over the valleys. New roads, like the 
veins and arteries of the human subject, 
circulated the young blood of a rejoicing 
country from the heart to the extremities; 
and the Capitol lifted its head over all with 
the dignity not unworthy of the days of Greece 
and Italy. The nation suddenly started 
into wealth, power and intelligence. 

Here are presented two pictures, the first 
one of wretchedness, destitution and poverty 
indescribable, and this under foreign, under 
British rule; and as a companion and contrast- 
ing picture, the same country within less 
than three years after British authority had 
ceased; flowing with milk and honey, a 
practically unbounded prosperity everywhere, 
and peace and plenty among all classes of 
the people and all under the egis of the newly 
secured Native Parliament. If effects follow 
cause in Ireland as elsewhere, then is British 
rule solely responsible for Ireland's deplorable 
condition, a condition that has been a byword 
and a reproach to England for centuries. 
And let it be here kept in mind that the 
amount of self-government which Ireland 
enjoyed during the period of which I have 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 147 

written, from 1783 to 1800, was a very poor 
and limited affair, indeed, compared with the 
Home Rule Bill that passed in the House of 
Commons on January sixteenth of this year, 
J 913. If the former brought such relief, such 
wonderfully improved conditions to a long 
impoverished and greatly distracted country, 
what may we not expect from the larger and 
more far reaching measure soon, we hope, to 
be enacted into law? 

Ireland's extraordinary prosperity during 
the period I have mentioned was; strange as 
it may appear, as a matter of fact, the cause 
of her downfall. 



Chapter XIII 

ENGLAND DESTROYS THE IRISH 
PARLIAMENT. 

England's difficulties with the Americans 
had ended about the year 1783, for they, aided 
by France and Spain, had secured their in- 
dependence and had begun to work out their 
own salvation in their own way. England's 
great final struggle with the First Napoleon 
had not yet commenced ; so, having her hands 
free, and no foreign entanglement to 
speak of, on looking towards the west she saw 
her neighbor, Ireland, flourishing and fairly 
bursting with industrial activity, with manu- 
factures of every kind; here, there, and every- 
where, the people happier and more prosperous 
than ever before, at least since the English 
occupation. 

This wonderful prosperity aroused En- 
gland's jealousy, just as the attempt of the 
Americans to start manufactures, had done 
some years before in the Colonial days when 
Lord Chatham declared the English govern- 
ment would not permit the Colonists to make 
even a hob-nail. And England determined to 
destroy these industries or, better still, trans- 
plant to English soil, if possible. 

I fully realize this is a dreadful charge to 
make, but it is the only one that can explain 
the deliberate, the cold blooded and system- 
atic destruction of Irish industries so graph- 
ically told, in an earlier part of this story, by 

148 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 149 

Mr. Brooks, and the further act to which I 
am now about to direct the reader's attention, 
namely, the overthrow of the Irish parliament, 
as the first step to the repeal of the protective 
laws, under which Ireland had so gloriously 
prospered. The Parliament being soon over- 
thrown, Ireland was once more thrown back 
into the slough of despond from which she 
had recently been rescued. 

The English historian, James Anthony 
Froude, commenting onEngland's treatment of 
Ireland says: — "England governed Ireland for 
what she deemed her own interests, leaving 
her moral obligations to acccumulate as if 
right and wrong were blotted out of the 
statutes of the Universe." 

A more striking proof of the truth of the 
above could not be found in the world than 
the destruction of the Irish Parliament, and 
the means used to bring it about. Mr. 
Gladstone, in his speech introducing the home 
rule bill in 1886, said there was nothing in 
history to equal the infamy of the means used 
to destroy the old Parliament. England fii*st 
incited a rebellion, and quenched it in the 
blood of the people, pulled down the Irish 
Parliament, reunited Ireland to herself once 
more, if the union of the lamb and the lion 
may be called such, and this once secured had 
the articles joining the two countries together 
so arranged that the Irish protective duties 
should be gradually reduced year by year for 
twenty-one years. So here again we find 
Ireland chained to her old time enemy and, 



150 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

as might be expected, with the old time re- 
sults. Long before the time allowed for the 
duties to end, twenty one years, Ireland had 
dropped back to the old time horrible condi- 
tion from which her own Parliament and laws 
had rescued her. 

One after another her industries were wiped 
out, all going down before the fierce competi- 
tion of her richer neighbor, a few industries 
being put out of business this year, and more 
the next, until all had gone. As soon as this 
had been effected, Irish industries and the 
Irish people were completely at the mercy of 
the British manufacturers and the latter 
gradually raised their prices to recoup them- 
selves for any losses they might have incurred 
at first; in a word, made the people pay what- 
ever they pleased. 

And now all manufacturing industries being 
destroyed there remained only the land as a 
means of livelihood. When the demand for 
land is very great, and the land itself is limited 
in extent, as in Ireland, for the island is only 
about three hundred miles long and half as 
many wide, and a large portion mountain 
and bog, and when every one must have some 
in order to live at all, it follows, as surely as 
night the day, that land will be dear, very 
dear, because of the fierce struggle to get it, 
and that at any cost. But while land under 
such circumstances is high, the products of 
the land are cheap, fearfully and dreadfully 
cheap. When all are engaged in farming, 
A. B. and C do not buy from each other, be- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 151 

cause each is engaged in raising like products, 
and so the struggle for the land, which made 
it dear, makes its products cheap. The peo- 
ple of Ireland were ground between the two 
heavy mill stones of dear land and cheap prod- 
ucts. Thus when the Great Famine came, 
lasting from 1847 to 1851, during which one 
million one hundred and twenty-five thous- 
and died, either of famine or diseases inci- 
dent to famine, about three million people were 
evicted and as many more emigrated. There 
was food enough raised in Ireland each year 
to more than supply the people's wants, as 
vouched for by Dr. Kane, an English authority, 
but so dear was land and so cheap its products 
than when the people had sold all, there was 
not enough money to pay the landlords, and 
nothing left for their own use, so they died 
by the million; and English law caused it. 
As further proof that there was an abundance 
of food, more than enough for the people's 
wants, I call the reader's attention to a state- 
ment in the St. Patrick's Day number of 
the London Times. 

"The facts of Irish destitution are 
ridiculously simple. They are almost too 
commonplace to be told. The people 
have not enough to eat. They are suffer- 
ing a real though an artificial famine. 
Nature does her duty. The land is fruit- 
ful enough. Nor can it be said that man is 
wanting. The Irishman is disposed to work. 
In fact, man and nature together do produce 



1 52 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

abundantly. The island is full and over- 
flowing with human food. But something 
ever interposes between the hungry 
mouth and the ample banquet. The 
famished victim of a mysterious sentence 
stretches out his hands to the viands which 
his own industry has placed before his 
eyes, but no sooner are they touched 
than they fly. A perpetual decree of 
'sic vos non vobis' condemns him to 
toil without enjoyment. Social atrophy 
drains off the vital juices of the Nation." 



Here we are told the island was overflowing 
with human food, and still the people were 
suffering an artificial famine. The Times 
writer does not tell us what causes this artifi- 
cial famine, but clearly implies it. English 
free trade having destroyed all the other in- 
dustries left the people wholly dependent on 
the land, and the landlords, and these land- 
lords with the foreign English church taking 
advantage of the golden opportunity, seized 
and gobbled up all the products of the land. 
The Rev. Dr. Cahill, the famous Irish 
orator, vividly and graphically describes, in one 
of his great lectures, the appalling effects of 
the free trade thus forced on Ireland, and 
especially in the famine years, so called, from 
1847 to 1851:— 

"Two curses," said he, "have been 
inflicted on Ireland — namely, the rack- 
renting landlords, and the accursed tithes. 
These two embodiments of malediction 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 153 

have bent Ireland to the earth, and have 
crushed her, body and soul; and, like a 
swarm of locusts, they ate up every green 
and living thing, and left nothing behind 
but the flint of the land. After centuries 
of this oppression, it suddenly pleases our 
rulers to make a law of Free Trade. No 
one, more than I do, advocates the prin- 
ciple of cheap bread for the working man, 
and of employment for his children in 
the mechanical arts of commerce. But 
the principle has introduced a scene of 
woe, which no pencil can paint. 

"The poor are exterminated, the ditches 
are crowded with the weak and aged; 
the poor-houses are charnel-places of 
pestilence and death; and the emigrant 
ship, like an ocean hearse, is sailing with 
her flag of distress hoisted, moving slowly 
through the waves, as she throws out her 
putrid dead; and, like the telegraph com- 
pany laying down their submarine wires, 
the crews of the emigrant ships have 
learned, by long practice, to tell of a line 
of the Irish dead along the bottom of the 
deep, and, at the same time, to sail six 
or seven knots an hour. England has 
practised them in the ocean sepulchre, 
so that, before the end of the year 1849, 
they could smoke, tell off the winding 
sheets and sail, all at the same time, from 
this dexterous, nautical, cholera practice. 

"Men there are who assert that the 
Government could not avoid this catas- 



154 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

trophe. I answer, it is a cruel lie. If 
there must be a change in the laws of 
trade, well, then, let it be made; but let 
the law-makers bear the responsibility. 
If they must have a new law, well, then, 
let them pay for their whims; let them 
make compensation for the damaging 
results of their own free, deliberate acts. 
They say the law is good in principle: 
I answer, but bad in detail. They say 
it has healthy premises: I reply, yes, and 
a deadly conclusion. They say, it is 
perfect in argument: but I assert, it is 
murder in practise. 

"They assert, it is the law; but I 
resume, and say, so much the worse — 
it legalizes and authorizes the public 
massacre of the people. This is a legal 
mockery, to hear the legislators tell the 
dying, starving, rotting peasant that he 
ought to be quite content with his lot; 
since he dies a Constitutional death, he 
will be buried according to law, in a 
Parliamentary churchyard, and will sleep 
till the Day of Judgment in a logical 
grave." 



Chapter XIV 

ANCIENT TENURE OF LAND 
IN IRELAND 

Mr. Brooks finds the best lands are given 
over to bullocks, and the poorest lands to the 
people, and adds: "The bullocks have made 
a solitude." Oh, no, the English government has 
made the solitude by evicting from their 
humble homes about four millions of people, 
between the year 1847 and the present time, 
and under the most harrowing and awful 
circumstances; evicted old and young, sick 
and well, and often in the depth of Winter 
threw them out on the roadside, and forbade 
their friends, neighbors or relatives to aid 
them in any way, to give them food, shelter, 
or raiment, under penalty of being treated 
in like manner themselves. And all this done 
under the protection of British law, and carried 
out by British soldiers, police and constabu- 
lary. So, I repeat, the landlords of Ireland, 
and the English government, have made these 
vast solitudes, and these appalling places are 
to be found all over Ireland, awe inspiring 
and fitting monuments to British rule. 

Many years ago, describing the horrors of 
an Irish eviction, the late Mr. Gladstone 
called it a sentence of death. Oh, how many 
deaths will the landlords have to account for? 
And the government also, which not only 
permitted such awful atrocities, but actually 
carried them out, as already stated. Mr. 

155 



156 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

Brooks expresses surprise that so few of the 
Irish emigrants go to any British possession. 
It is a. wonder indeed that any of the poor 
harassed people should go to any place over 
which the British flag floats. 

But some of them, just a few, do lose their 
bearings for a short time, and before they 
realize it find themselves somewhere in the 
British possessions. They do not remain 
long however, at least not many of them, but 
soon find their way back to some snug harbor 
elsewhere. 

In order to get something like a clear idea 
of the Tragedy of Ireland, it is necessary to 
know something of the tenure of the land 
before its occupation by England. Prior to 
the English invasion, in 1169 to 1172, the Irish 
tribes, or clans, owned the land directly, and 
of course paid no rents of any kind for its 
use. The chief, or head of the clan, had only 
a life's interest in it, and then only on his 
own part. Speaking of this phase of the 
question, Mr. Brooks very innocently says: — 
Tribalism penetrated the Irish mind with the 
conviction that the Irish soil belonged to 
them. Why not? Who had a right to it, 
except the people to whom it had belonged 
from time immemorial? Surely the English 
invaders had no right to it, save that of high- 
way robbers. And yet Mr. Brooks seems to 
think they had. How true is the English 
historian Froude's remarks that British rule 
in Ireland proceeded as if the moral law had 
no existence. At any rate the authorities 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 1 57 

acted as if there were no right and no wrong 
in the world, or, to put it in another way, what- 
ever advanced British interests was right, 
and anything that retarded those interests 
was wrong, wholly regardless of every moral 
and divine consideration. And our English 
friend, Mr. Brooks, seems amazed that any 
one should question their right to do so. 
This want of thoroughly understanding the 
difference between mine and thine, or wanting 
to understand it, on the part of the British, 
has led to all the evils, strife and bloodshed, 
and all the iniquities that have been perpe- 
trated in all the long and weary centuries. 
But the bloody chasm of the bitter past 
seems about to be closed up, and let us hope 
forever. It is almost needless to remind 
people with conscience that there is a difference 
between mine and thine, a great, a far reaching 
difference; that they are as far apart as the 
poles; as heaven and hell. 

It came to pass then, that as soon as the 
English had conquered a chief, or his tribe, 
or corrupted the former, they assumed or 
pretended to assume that he owned the tribal 
lands and as a consequence these lands fell 
to them by right of conquest. This the clans- 
men stoutly and valiantly denied and defen- 
ded their denial with their lives, and it has 
taken more than seven long and bloody cen- 
turies to hammer into the English mind that 
the clansmen were right. And thus commenced 
that long and terrible struggle for the soil 
of Ireland, one that has continued with very 



158 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

little intermission up to the present time. 
From this contest has come more strife and 
bloodshed, more calamity and wrong than 
from any other one cause in the relations 
between the countries. 

As I have elsewhere shown, Mr. Brooks, 
again and again, falls back on the last resort 
of English apologists for the conditions in 
Ireland; namely, that Ireland's grievances are 
sentimental, or at least partly so. This is all 
the more surprising from the fact that he 
has himself given some of the best refutations 
of the charge I have ever seen, and in more 
than half a dozen places in his writings. 
For he tells us of the great load of overtaxa- 
tion that Ireland is compelled to stagger under 
and he does not tell anything like the whole 
of it at that, about her wretchedly poor sys- 
tem of education, the gross injustice done to 
three fourths of the people, the Catholics, by 
denying them University education, until a 
few years ago; and all this while the remainder 
of the people, the Episcopalians and Presby- 
terians, were blessed with everything they 
could desire in this matter; were in fact pam- 
pered favorites. Nor is this all, for in another 
place he tells us how all the Irish lands were 
taken from their rightful owners and given 
to certain English and Scotch adventurers, 
and some to favored English guilds. In 
addition I may state that the ancient church 
and monastery lands were also taken, and the 
former given to the new Church by law es- 
tablished, while the monasteries, which before 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 159 

the so-called Reformation had supported the 
poor and the indigent, were given to the 
favorites of the English monarchs. In the 
olden days before the Reformation, the monks 
took care of the poor, fed them, housed them 
and clothed them, both in Great Britain and 
Ireland, from the produce of the lands, and 
did it not only willingly, but cheerfully and 
delightedly, regarding it as a precious work of 
mercy, to take care of Christ's poor, and of 
course without any cost whatever to the 
nation, or any of its people. After the monks 
were expelled, however, and their lands seized 
and given to the king's or queen's hirelings, 
the cost of maintaining the poor fell directly 
on the people at large, and then for the first 
time were invented the ominous words, 
"pauper" and the "poorhouse," words and 
institutions never before heard of. 

DIFFERENT CONDITIONS IN 
IRELAND. 

Another thing that Mr. Brooks does not 
mention, is the fine old British practice of 
jury packing, in political cases, a practice by 
which the forms of law were scrupulously 
preserved, while the spirit was wholly ab- 
sent. And when the people became too troub- 
lesome even the form was abolished, the 
habeus corpus was suspended, and any man, 
woman or child might be arrested and thrown 
into prison, and left there to rot, without trial 
of judge or jury, without any charge being 



160 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

brought against them, on mere suspicion. 

The reader will better appreciate what this 
means when I say that during the century 
from 1800 to 1900 the habeus corpus was sus- 
pended eighty-seven times, and in the 
year of Queen Victoria's jubilee was made 
perpetual, though since repealed. If the 
reader should still have any doubts as to 
whether or not Irish grievances are real, hard 
practical grievances, or merely fanciful, and 
sentimental, I will here present still another 
extract from our English friend, Mr. Brooks, 
which will, I am sure, convince any honest 
person that the Irish troubles are real griev- 
ances indeed, with scarcely anything sen- 
timental about them. Says Mr. Brooks: — 
"Five centuries of Anglo-Irish history had 
destroyed the native civilization, had dis- 
possessed the people of their holdings, their 
lands, had marshalled on either side of the 
agrarian struggle the interests and antagon- 
ism of social and religious strife, and had 
centered in a small minority of Alien creed, 
speech and temperament, practically all politi- 
cal power and privilege of a social and terri- 
torial ascendency." 

I will let the reader reconcile as best he can 
the above with- Mr. Brooks' statement that 
Irish grievances are sentimental. After this 
Mr. Brooks proceeds to tell us that Ireland is 
under British law, and implies that is a reme- 
dy for all political evils. I think Ireland has 
learned that fact, with a vengeance, and he 
innocently seems to think that is enough, 




MICHAEL J. RYAN 
National President, U. I. L. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 161 

and intimates if she is not prosperous and 
happy, the fault is her own. He also over- 
looks what should be apparent to all ; namely, 
that if the conditions prevailing in Ireland 
be radically different from those found in the 
British islands, as they are; if her history, 
traditions, ancient land ownership, faith, aspi- 
rations; if all these as well as other things be 
different, she demands and should receive 
different treatment. 

The laws, which might be perfectly satis- 
factory and just under one set of circumstances, 
it is easy to imagine, might be most oppres- 
sive under other and different conditions. 
This is so self-evident it should need no argu- 
ment, but it seems it does. It is as unreason- 
able to try to fit all peoples with the same sort 
of laws and institutions, regardless of their 
different customs, manners, history, religion 
and speech, as it would be to try to cure all 
manner of diseases with one remedy only, 
or fit all men with one size shoes or garments. 
And yet this is precisely what Great Britain 
has been trying to do in Ireland for centuries, 
and with the most lamentable and disastrous 
results, as Mr. Brooks himself is compelled 
to confess. 

In England, Scotland and Wales the land- 
lords are of the same faith and race as their 
tenants, they live among their tenantry, share 
their ups and downs, their joys and sorrows, 
and are in close touch with them at all times, 
and, in a word, they are in a sense part and 
parcel of their people. Any improvements 



162 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

made on the land, fences, or outhouses, are 
always paid for by the landlords in 
Great Britain, and such is, and has been the 
rule also in Ulster. 

How has it been in the other parts of Ire- 
land? There it has been entirely different, 
until the recent remedial land measures. 
The lands, as I have already shown, were taken 
from their rightful owners and given to cer- 
tain guilds, or organizations, mostly British, 
the greatest portion of them to certain favor- 
ed individuals. These new owners were alien 
in speech, customs, manners and religion as 
well as habits of thought from the natives, and 
looked on the original owners as conquered 
slaves, or serfs, and treated them according- 
ly. There could, of course, be no community 
of interest between them. They looked at 
almost everything from different and oppos- 
ing standpoints; one from that of the conquer- 
or, the other that of the conquered. 

As the new landlords were alien to the 
people in almost everything, as might be 
expected, they were wanting in sympathy, 
that golden link that binds man to his fellow- 
man in bonds of kindliness, friendship and 
good will. The tenants regarded the new- 
comer as a successful robber, who was enjoy- 
ing what he had no moral right to possess, 
their property, and the law not as a benefi- 
cent instrument to right their wrongs, but 
rather as a huge power for guarding and de- 
fending the thief, and for seeing he should 
not be disturbed in the enjoyment of his ill- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 1 63 

gotten goods. And almost incredible to relate, 
the English are surprised we Irish do not 
fall down and worship such laws, enact- 
ed by robbers, for robbers! It is scarcely 
necessary to add that improvements in the 
land were impossible under such a system. 
Somewhere in Mr. Brooks' writings, he tells 
us the Irish must learn the gospel of work. 
Merciful heavens, who could work under 
such almost incredible conditions? — under 
such an appalling system? Does not it offer 
a premium on idleness, on shiftlessness, on 
improvidence, on ignorance? The wonder 
is that any people could survive at all under 
such an awful state of things. Wherever the 
Irish people go, outside of their own land, 
they are the ablest and most willing of all 
workers, and along all lines of human en- 
deavor. 

In Great Britain, if the farmer finds the 
conditions hard, unjust or oppressive, he can 
sell out his interest in the place, and take his 
family and himself to the nearest factory town 
or city, where he may hope to begin life anew, 
and better his condition. England took care 
that Ireland should not be burdened with 
mills or factories of any kind, as we have al- 
ready learned. The Irish farmer is not how- 
ever so fortunately situated. He can only 
take himself and his dear ones to the poor- 
house, a place of ill omen wherever known, 
and a purely British institution. It can be 
truly said of the Irish poorhouse: all who 
enter here, leave hope behind. If he be for- 



164 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

tunate enough to have relatives or friends 
abroad, who are able to pay his fare to the 
new land, he may emigrate. When driven 
from the home of his fathers, he always leaves 
reluctantly and sorrowfully; and carries with 
him a heritage of hate towards his oppressors 
that finds vent later on every available op- 
portunity. 

We find largely as a consequence of such a 
system that, while the population of Great 
Britain has largely increased since 1847, near- 
ly doubled in fact, that of Ireland has fallen 
off by one-half. Ireland is the only country 
in the civilized world where there has been 
no increase in population, but rather where it 
has declined, and, as I have said, by about one 
half. 

What a commentary on British rule! As 
the reader knows, I have quoted freely from 
Mr. Brooks both as to the facts he so ably 
presents and his comments, his opinions on 
the same, because I wish the reader to see 
for himself how his facts and evidences con- 
tradict his opinions on this matter of British 
rule, his prejudice and prepossessions arguing 
for the continuance of such rule, while his 
large sense of justice demands its repeal. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 165 

He makes at times the most amazing state- 
ments, not as to opinions only — for there a 
certain latitude might be expected — but as to 
matters of facts, things that every schoolboy 
at all acquainted with British government in 
Ireland ought to know. For instance, he 
says: — "The exceptional laws which apply to 
Ireland, and do not apply to England, are few 
in numbers and of little account." 

The value of this statement may be seen 
when it is known that: — 

"Ireland has experienced since the pas- 
sage of the act of union in 1800, no fewer 
than 87 different coercion acts, or almost 
one for each year since the union was 
enacted." 

"Mr. Brooks may regard it as of "little 
account" that under its provision domi- 
ciliary visits by the police to private 
households are made legal, the habeas 
corpus may be and has been suspended at 
a moment's notice over Ireland, by the 
Lord Lieutenant; defendants charged 
with political offenses may be removed 
from any one part of the country to any 
other and tried by specially selected jurors, 
that two magistrates specially appointed 
by the government may imprison at will 
anybody brought before them under the 
act, and deny the right of appeal; and 



166 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

that other provisions equally repugnant 
to the spirit of fair play and liberty are 
likewise embodied in the act. Neither 
of these provisions applies in England, 
and most fair minded people will be in- 
clined to differ with Mr. Brooks and feel 
that they are not of "little account." 



Chapter XV. 
IRISH SERVICES TO AMERICA. 

What an awful record of exceptional treat- 
ment have we here, and all this applied to Ire- 
land alone, notwithstanding Mr. Brooks states 
that the laws which applied to Ireland, and did 
not apply to England, were few and of little 
account. It can be truthfully said, if England 
had displayed half the zeal in trying to make 
Ireland prosperous and happy that she has 
shown in making her poor, wretched and 
miserable, Ireland would be her pride and 
glory today, and her tower of strength in the 
evil days that are ahead. But England chose 
at first the evil way, and has continued in it 
all down the centuries and must now pay the 
penalty. Ireland blocks and bars the way at 
every turn, and has done so in the House of 
Commons for about thirty years, the Irish 
Party holding the balance of power there. 
Nor is that all, for here in America, too, 
British diplomacy, always watchful, always 
keen and shrewd, is checkmated at each and 
every turn of the diplomatic game by these 
same Irish enemies, whom her inhuman sys- 
tem drove off as if they were wild beasts. 
Ireland has indeed scored heavily against her 
enemy, and that many, many times. She 
made England pay dearly in the American 
Revolution for, according to the statement of 
some British officers, America was lost to 
Great Britain through the Irish. And Gen. 
Packenham, one of those who fought against 

167 



168 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

the Continental Army, testifying before a 
committee of the House of Commons, declared 
one half of Washington's troops were Irish, 
and that the Irish language was as much 
spoken among them as English. And the 
Irish were as conspicuous in their services on 
sea, for the Colonists, as on land. Need I 
remind the reader that the famous Captain 
John Barry was the father and founder of our 
American Navy, though bigots of the A. P. A. 
stripe have been striving to rob him of his 
laurels, and to show that John Paul Jones was 
its founder. Jones was an able and a brave 
man, but it can be said in all truth he had 
nothing in common with American institu- 
tions, that he was, in fact, an adventurer who 
was willing to sell his service to the highest 
bidder, and did so by joining the Russian 
Navy. 

In answer to a correspondent from Texas, 
The Irish World, of recent date, gives the 
following account of Commander Barry 
and his career while at the head of the Con- 
tinental navy: — 

FATHER OF THE NAVY IGNORED. 

"There was a time when the densest 
ignorance prevailed as to the part Irish- 
Americans took in making American his- 
tory. When the Irish World first under- 
took to dissipate this ignorance, even our 
own people were astonished at the facts 
we dug up from the debris of the past. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 169 

The opinion, sedulously nourished by 
Anglo-American writers, was that men 
of our race had little or nothing to do 
with securing for America the political 
rights that made of a few scattered colon- 
ies the greatest of nations. Irish- Amer- 
icans were regarded as new comers, 
strangers within the gates, who had not 
borne the heat and burden of the day and, 
therefore, should regard themselves as 
beneficiaries of those who did. The the- 
ory was that they should bear themselves 
in a deferential manner toward the de- 
scendants of the latter." 

"J he Irish World proved by an array 
of historic facts that men of our race, 
from the very beginning, took a con- 
spicuous part in the events that led up to 
the birth of the Republic. Commodore 
John Barry, the Father of the American 
Navy, was one of those Irishmen who 
rendered this sort of service. Yet in 
certain quarters a disposition is mani- 
fested to rob him of his well deserved 
laurels. This note from a correspondent 
is self-explanatory: 

Houston, Texas. 

"Dear Sir: Inclosed is a copy of a 
communication circulated in this local- 
ity. You will readily notice that the 
name of Jack Barry is conspicuously 
ignored. This prejudice should be vig- 
orously exposed. — Respectfully yours, 

Jas. P. Welsh." 



1 70 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

"The communication referred to is a 
circular addressed to the superintendents 
of all Texas schools, signed by the Chair- 
man of the "Committee on Silver Service 
for the Battleship 'Texas." It suggests 
that it would be appropriate to have for 
the week prior to the presentation of the 
silver service "especially assigned studies 
for the history hour, regarding the Amer- 
ican Navy." The writer of the circular 
adds that Rear Admiral Vreeland "has 
very kindly suggested as appropriate sub- 
jects for study the following engagements 
of the Navy, as representing its best 
traditions of efficiency, bravery and patriot- 
ism." 

"Then follows a list of naval engage- 
ments. The only names mentioned are 
those of John Paul Jones and Hobson. 
Commodore Barry is wholly ignored. 
The pupils of the Texas schools are not 
to hear his name even mentioned. He, 
in the opinion of Admiral Vreeland, does 
not represent the "best traditions of effi- 
ciency, bravery and patriotism" of the 
Navy which came into existence under 
his supervision. Let us see who is the 
naval hero who is not deemed fit to be 
held up to the pupils of the schools of 
Texas as worthy of their admiration." 

"It is the Spring of 1776. The Decla- 
ration of Independence has not yet been 
penned. Barry sails from Philadelphia 
down the Delaware in command of the 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 171 

Lexington. He meets with the British 
ship Edward, which was armed with 
eight carriage guns and a number of 
swivels, and captures it after some brisk 
fighting. The action elicited from John 
Adams the comment: "We begin to make 
some little figure here in the Navy way." 
Preble, in his Origin of the Flag, says 
of this victory: "This Lexington of the 
seas, therefore, occupies the position in 
our naval annals that the Lexington from 
whence she derived her name does from 
having been the arena of the first con- 
flict of the Colonies with England. * * * * 
She was the first vessel that bore the 
Continental flag to victory on the ocean 
"It was the beginning of a brilliant 
career in a navy with which Commodore 
Barry, unlike Paul Jones, remained iden- 
tified till his dying day. The next year 
he was Senior Commander of the Amer- 
ican Navy at Philadelphia, and as such 
repulsed a British squadron sailing up the 
Delaware. On the capture of the city 
he greatly harassed the transports of the 
enemy on the Delaware. On one occa- 
sion he captured a schooner and some of 
these transports. Of this exploit John 
Laurens, in a letter to his father, Henry 
Laurens, President of the Congress, wrote, 
"You will be informed of Captain Barry's 
success with two or three armed boats 
on the Delaware. Two transports loaded 
with forage, one of them mounting six 



172 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

four-pounders, attended by a schooner 
mounting eight four-pounders and four 
howitzers, fell into his hands by his gal- 
lantry and address." Washington him- 
self writing of Barry's achievement said: 
"The exploit was considered highly cred- 
itable to Captain Barry, on account of 
the enterprise and daring he displayed in 
going down the river when it was full of 
the enemies' shipping and small craft." 
(Spark's Writings of Washington, Vol. 
V, p. 271.) 

"The bravery exhibited by Barry on 
this occasion was surely equal to that 
displayed by Hobson in his dash into 
Santiago harbor, and was far more pro- 
ductive of beneficial results. Yet Amer- 
ican youth are taught to admire the 
latter act, whilst they are left in total 
ignorance of the heroic deed that elicited 
Washington's commendation. In ignor- 
ing Barry an opportunity is lost for hold- 
ing up to the pupils in the schools of 
Texas a striking example of unpurchas- 
able patriotism. When Sir William Howe 
learnt of that capture of British trans- 
ports in the Delaware he was quick to 
recognize and appreciate Barry's ability 
as a fighter. He lost no time in offering 
the Irish-American sailor a tempting bait 
in the shape of 20,000 guineas and the 
command of a British frigate, if he would 
abandon the American cause. Here is 
the written reply to the attempt to wean 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 1 73 

him away from the American cause: 
"Not the value and command of the 
whole British fleet can seduce me from 
the cause of my country." What a 
lesson for the youth of the land is em- 
bodied in this patriotic declaration of 
Commodore Barry. 

"Then, too, if the author of the cir- 
cular to the superintendents of the Texas 
schools had been desirous of furnishing 
the youth of that State with a story to 
stir their young blood, what better choice 
could be made than the account of how 
Barry fought on board of the Alliance 
against two British ships. It is a naval 
engagement which, as told in Bailey's 
Naval Biography, is replete with dram- 
atic interest. Barry, wounded and weak 
from the loss of blood, is carried below. 
In the meantime the two British ships 
are pouring broadside after broadside 
into the Alliance, which seems to be 
doomed. The lieutenant in command 
thought the time had come for hauling 
down the Stars and Stripes. Going to 
the wounded Barry, he made his opinion 
known to him. What followed is thus 
described in Bailey's Naval Biography: 
"'No', said he, 'and if the ship can't 
be fought without, I will be carried on 
deck.' When the lieutenant made known 
to the crew the determination of their 
brave commander, fresh spirit was in- 
fused into them, and they one and all 



174 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

resolved to 'stick by him.' As soon as his 
wound was dressed, he insisted upon 
being carried on deck, but before he 
reached it the enemy had struck." 

"Of such stuff was the Father of the 
American Navy made. In war, as in 
peace, he loyally served his country. 
He was selected as head of America's 
infant navy, in the developing of which 
he spent the remainder of his life. In 
Judson's Sages and Heroes of the Revo- 
lution we have this pen portrait of him: 
"He was noble in spirit, humane in dis- 
cipline, discreet and fearless in battle, 
urbane in his manners, a splendid officer, 
a good citizen, a devoted Christian, a 
good patriot." To erase the memory of 
such a hero from the pages of American 
history would be a distinct national loss. 
The manner in which he served his coun- 
try in the days of its weakness teaches 
a lesson of patriotism far more impres- 
ive than any such study as suggested in 
the circular addressed to the superin- 
tendents of the schools of Texas. It does 
seem strange that the American admiral 
who suggested the matter of that cir- 
cular should ignore the Father of the 
American Navy with whose heroic deeds 
he must be familiar." 



I shall here supplement the above interest- 
ing account of Commodore Barry and his 
achievements for the American patriots by 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 175 

quoting the official pronouncement of Mr. 
Franklin D. Roosevelt, assistant Secretary 
of the United States Navy, recently deliv- 
ered : — 

"Barry left his own land to take part 
in the Revolution, and offered himself 
and his ship to the American Government 
When the navy was started, the first 
ship, the Lexington, was given to Barry; 
and the first British flag ever struck to 
an American naval officer was struck 
to Barry. Off the coast of Cuba, he 
engaged in the last sea encounter of the 
Revolution. Washington commissioned 
him Number One in the navy, and he 
held his commission until he died. Lord 
Howe, from New York, tried to win Barry 
over, and you know the answer he got — 
that Barry would not be seduced from 
the cause of his country for the value of 
the entire British Navy. 

"The Government having spoken 
through its accredited representative, the 
matter may be regarded as definitely 
settled: to Barry, not Jones, belongs the 
hitherto disputed honor." 

THE IRISH IN THE CIVIL AND SPAN- 
ISH WARS. 

The work of the Irish in the Spanish war 
is perhaps best told in the magnificent poem, 
by Joseph I.C. Clarke, entitled: The Fighting 
Race : 



176 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

"THE FIGHTING RACE" 

By Joseph. I. C. Clark 

"Read out the names!" and Burke sat back, 

And Kelly drooped his head. 
While Shea — they call him Scholar Jack — 

Went down the list of the dead. 
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines, 

The crews of the gig and yawl, 
The bearded man and the lad in his teens, 

Carpenters, coal passers — all. 
Then, knocking the ashes from out his pipe, 

Said Burke in an offhand way : 
"We're all in that dead man's list, by Cripe! , 

Kelly and Burke and Shea." 
"Well, here's to the Maine, and I'm sorry for Spain, 

Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. 

"Wherever there's Kellys there's trouble,'" said Burke. 

"Wherever fighting's the game, 
Or a spice of danger in grown man's work." 

Said Kelly, "you'll find my name." 
"And do we fall short," said Burke, getting mad, 

"When it's touch and go for life?" 
Said Shea, "It's thirty-odd years, bedad, 

Since I charged to drum and fife 
Up Marye's Heights, and my old canteen 

Stopped a rebel ball on its way. 
There were blossoms of blood on our sprigs of green — 

Kelly and Burke and Shea — 
And the dead didn't brag." "Well, here's to the flag!" 

Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. 

"I wish 'twas in Ireland, for there's the place," 
Said Burke, "that we'd die by right, 

In the cradle of our soldier race, 
After one good stand-up fight. 

My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill, 
And fighting was not his trade; 




THOMAS B. FITZPATRICK 
National Treasurer, U. I. L. A. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 177 



But his rusty pike's in the cabin still 

With Hessian blood on the blade." 
"Aye, aye," said Kelly, "the pikes were great 

When the word was 'Clear the Way!' 
We were thick on the roll in ninety-eight — 

Kelly and Burke and Shea." 
"Well, here's to the pike and the sword and the like!" 

Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. 



And Shea, the scholar, with rising joy, 

Said, "We were at Ramillies; 
We left our bones at Fontenoy 

And up in the Pyrenees; 
Before Dunkirk, on Landen's plain, 

Cremona, Lille, and Ghent, 
We're all over Austria, France and Spain, 

Wherever they pitched a tent. 
We've died for England from Waterloo 

To Egypt and Dargai ; 
And still there's enough for a corps or crew, 

Kelly and Burke and Shea." 
"Well, here is to good honest fighting blood!" 

Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. 



"Oh, the fighting races don't die out, 

If they seldom die in bed, 
For love is first in their hearts, no doubt," 

Said Burke; then Kelly said: 
"When Michael, the Irish Archangel, stands, 

The angel with the sword, 
And the battle-dead from a hundred lands 

Are ranged in one big horde, 
Our line, that for Gabriel's trumpet waits, 

Will stretch three deep that day, 
From Jehosaphat to the Golden Gates — 

Kelly and Burke and Shea." 
"Well, here's thank God for the race and the sod!" 

Said Kelly and Burke and Shea. 



178 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

Clearly the Irish had much useful work to 
do for the land that gave them a refuge and 
a shelter, and well and nobly did they repay 
the benefits received. All the world knows of 
their glorious work in the Civil War. 

Without in any way wishing to disparage 
any other race or people, I feel perfectly safe 
in saying that more men of Irish birth or 
descent took part in defence of the Union 
than of any other people, the natives alone 
excepted. There is scarcely a doubt but 
that at least thirty to thirty-three per cent 
of all the land and naval forces of the United 
States were either born in Ireland, or of Irish 
origin, and many keen observers place the 
number much higher. 

Among the many distinguished officers of 
Irish descent, to mention only a few, there were 
Gen. George A. Meade, the victor at Gettys- 
burg, Gen. John A. Logan, fighting Phil. 
Kearney, Thomas Francis Meagher and the 
invincible Philip H. Sheridan, of whom Gen. 
Grant said to the late Senator Hoar of Mass. 
that he, Sheridan, had no superior as an officer, 
either in the ancient or modern world. 

Eulogy has here exhausted itself, has said 
all that can be said in the way of praise. 



Chapter XVI 

ENGLAND'S DIPLOMACY 
CHECKMATED 

And now to come back from this little 
digression touching the physical prowess of 
the Fighting Race, a quality in which all 
know they excel, and always have, to another 
and different kind of effort; to diplomacy. It 
goes without saying the English agents are, 
from long experience and a somewhat calloused 
conscience, past masters in the art, while 
we Irish are supposed to be raw green hands. 
And yet, even here, England has not the game 
entirely in her own hands; far from it. The 
Irish who, in the words of the London Times 
fifty years ago, had gone with a vengeance, 
have been "nursing their wrath to keep it 
warm" and they, with aid of good and patriotic 
Americans, of all races, have blocked the 
artful little games of our dear British cousins 
in their efforts for an American-British 
alliance. It is well known, a kind of open 
secret in fact, that there has been in this coun- 
try for many years a little clique of pro- 
Britishers, few in numbers, but loud and noisy, 
and heavily financed by Andrew Carnegie's 
millions, as stated already. This little coterie 
is made up chiefly of people of British birth, 
a few of them American citizens, but most of 
them unnaturalized, with a few well meaning 
but simple and gullible Americans, peace 
visionaries. These people, whether citizens or 

179 



180 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

not, are for Great Britain first, last and al- 
ways, and play the English game unceasingly, 
as shown by their recent demand that we give 
England part of Alaska! They flood Congress 
and Protestant churches with circular letters, 
praying, urging, and even demanding a British- 
American alliance, or something that can be 
presented to the world as such, and try to 
make themselves and the world believe that 
if anything of this nature could be brought 
about, we should have the millennium at 
once, the lion would lie down with the lamb, 
or rather with the eagle, our swords would 
be turned to plow-shares, and, in one word, 
there would be peace throughout the world. 
A nice little game of the British, but deep. 
It is no use, however; the world sees through it, 
and the Irish and their friends have always 
barred it, always. It does not need a great 
exercise of memory to recall the fact that 
Great Britain, which is so suddenly anxious for 
peace that she is almost willing to fight for 
it, waged more wars during the nineteenth 
century, just closed, than all the other great 
powers combined, and almost all wars of 
aggression, and against the weak and defence- 
less; over fifty wars in all, big and little, 
during the reign of the late Queen Victoria; 
and it is perfectly safe to say no two of them 
justifiable on moral grounds. Great Brit- 
ain has worked quite a number of these peace 
games in this country during the last thirty 
years or more, but all have failed, whether 
done in secret, like Carnegie's present Al- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 181 

liance peace game, or openly. It is unnecessary, 
I am sure, to remind the reader of the many 
treaties drawn up between the two countries, 
during comparatively recent years, the osten- 
sible object of all being for peace and good 
will throughout the whole world, but especial- 
ly between the two contracting parties. 

Great Britain's real object, many think, 
was just a wee bit different and this was to 
have these treaties so drawn up, and especially 
to have them so presented to the world, as to 
make the United States appear as the friend 
and ally of England. But all have failed, 
due largely to the Irish and the truly patriotic 
Americans. Besides, Ireland has made Eng- 
land's name a byword and a reproach around 
the world as the one nation that is forever 
preaching and prating about liberty as the 
one great, the one desirable thing, and yet, 
forever crushing it, and trampling it in the 
dust, whenever and wherever it interferes 
with her designs or stands in the way of her 
projects. Ireland and India tell the story. 
Another instance, among the almost innumer- 
able ones that might be cited, is the infa- 
mously wicked act by which Great Britain 
some 70 years ago forced at the mouth of her 
cannon, on the defenceless Chinese nation, 
her Indian-grown opium, and has continued 
to do so up to this present time. 

It may be asked what all this has to do 
with the Irish question? Much, for until 
England lets go her grip on Ireland there will 
be no peace for her at home, no sympathy, no 



182 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

support abroad. For, as every one knows, it 
is poor, weak, despised Ireland that has 
stacked the cards against her here in America, 
and barred the way against her diplomatic 
games. 

If any one doubts the strength of the Irish- 
American vote and influence, which can al- 
ways be counted on as against England's, 
until she does justice to Ireland, I call his 
attention to an incident in comparatively 
recent times. 

When the late President Cleveland w T as up 
for re-election, a letter was sent to the British 
ambassador, at Washington, Sir Julian Paun- 
cefort, by a person from Lynn, Mass., who 
represented himself as a British workingman, 
asking advice as to the best person to vote 
for to promote English interests. Sir Julian 
fell into the trap at once, and wrote advising 
his supposed countryman to vote for Cleve- 
land. As the letter was a decoy, the whole 
correspondence was made public immediately, 
and fell like a bombshell among Cleveland's 
friends. 

Now note what followed: instead of being 
thankful for the offered support, Cleveland 
demanded of the British Government the 
immediate recall of its Minister, a demand 
that was speedily complied with. Why the 
demand? Why the recall? Because it was 
well understood that any candidate repre- 
senting British interests, no matter how remote 
ly, would meet the united and overwhelming 
opposition of the Irish-American voters, 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 183 

and would arouse certain latent jealousy 
among a large number of American voters, 
and that both factors would bury politically 
anyone who dared to accept such aid. A 
more striking instance of the strength and 
influence of the Irish- American vote could 
not well be given. 

THE LATE BRITISH REMEDIAL 
LEGISLATION 

But it may be urged, indeed it is urged, and 
with some show of reason, that Great Britain 
has enacted quite a large number of beneficial 
measures for the relief of Ireland during the 
last one hundred years, and especially during 
the last twenty-five or thirty years, — such as 
the Catholic Emancipation Act, in 1829, the 
disestablishment of the Protestant church in 
Ireland, in 1869, thereby freeing the people, 
at least in part, from the yoke of this foreign 
institution; the various enactments during 
this period in regard to the sale, tenure, owner- 
ship and renting of lands, compensation for 
improvements, etc., and commonly known as 
the land measures; and finally the coming 
Home Rule Bill. While cheerfully admitting 
the great benefits derived from the above 
laws, and the enormous gain that may be 
expected to Ireland from the great Home 
Rule measure (I am assuming it will become 
a law) , it should be borne in mind that all the 
evils, all the abuses which the above remedial 
legislation was, and is, intended to correct 



184 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

and wipe out are solely of England's making, 
and many others also for which as yet there is 
no remedy in sight. And to make matters 
worse, all the reformatory measures had to 
be wrung from England slowly and grudgingly, 
and by piecemeal forced from her under the 
greatest possible stress and agitation, and on 
two occasions, at least, only when threatened 
with Civil war was relief granted. England 
has spoiled all her gifts, if they can be called 
gifts, by her manner of giving. Catholic 
Emancipation was forced from her by fear 
of war, and the disestablishment of the Prot- 
estant church in 1869 by Fenian movement, 
as admitted by Mr. Gladstone himself. 

Mr. Brooks tells us with a great flourish 
of trumpets that Ireland is under the egis of 
British rule, and clearly implies that if she 
is not happy and prosperous, the fault is her 
own, and is because of something exceptional 
in the Irish character, and then says: — 

"She is the only failure under the English 
flag!" 

How about British India? Were there not 
a great number of uprisings in that once great 
country against this ideal rule with which 
he is so enamoured— no less than six or seven 
during the reign of Queen Victoria? 
Every few years great famines sweep over 
the land, carrying off millions at a time, 
leaving wholesale ruin in their path, and this, 
too, let it be remembered, in a land famous for 
its wealth since the dawn of history. "The 
wealth of Ind" has passed into a proverb. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 185 

And it is well known the country is even now 
seething with sedition and threatened with 
rebellion. People do not ordinarily rise up 
and slaughter their benefactors, those who 
have showered blessings upon them. It is 
almost needless to add that when a people 
thus act, it is generally against those whom 
they regard as oppressors. Nor should it be 
forgotten that famines were rarely or ever 
heard of before the coming of the British, 
and I believe are of very rare occurrence in 
the native states now. 

How does Mr. Brooks explain the fact 
that the American Colonists turned out and 
fought a bloody war, lasting seven years, 
rather than submit to live under these laws 
and institutions that he thinks are the very 
best for all peoples, and that since then they 
have gone along by leaps and bounds, and 
have become a mighty nation, one of the most 
powerful in the world, the wonder of all. 
Nor are the British colonies proper always 
satisfied with their glorious English institu- 
tions, that Mr. Brooks raves about, for I 
find that twenty-six of her colonies are self- 
governing: among them Australia, New 
Zealand, the late Boer Republic of South 
Africa, as well as the Dominion of Canada, 
which rather than longer endure British con- 
trol rebelled in 1837. Still more, the slight 
bonds which have heretofore held these colo- 
nies together more or less loosely are being 
gradually snapped and broken. How ex- 
plain Canada's demand a few years ago, 



186 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

for the withdrawal of British Military and 
Naval forces from Canadian forts and waters, 
a request, by the way, quickly complied with, 
and Canada's refusal to be bound by any 
treaty affecting her rights, honor or territory 
unless she herself is a party to the same. 
Even if Ireland's grievances were solely sen- 
timental, as Mr. Brooks so strangely says, 
she could even then make out a perfect case, 
as I shall presently show. Let us suppose 
that, by one of those great revolutions that so 
often take place and which change the geo- 
graphical lines and limits of nations, that 
Great Britain were conquered by some great 
power, say Germany, or the United States, 
and that the victorious country gave her own 
laws and institutions to the conquered En- 
glish people. Would they be satisfied? They 
would have under the new regime as much 
liberty, fair play and justice as the natives 
and citizens of the victorious party, but again 
I ask, would they be satisfied? Would they 
be contented with equal rights, equal privi- 
leges and equal opportunities? 

Of course they would not, even though 
under the new conditions the state of things 
might be more favorable to the bulk of the 
British masses than under native rule. 
England would sit back sullen and discontent- 
ed' 'nursing her wrath to keep it warm," and 
would plot and scheme to overthrow her 
enemy. Why? The conditions for the toil- 
ing millions might be much better; they could 
not very well be worse. To anyone who 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 187 

doubts this, I would recommend a reading 
of "Darkest England and the Way Out," by the 
late General Booth, founder of the Salvation 
Army. And yet the people of England, or 
Great Britain, as the case might be, would be 
burning with indignation, and shame at the 
humiliation that had fallen on them. 

There would be cabals and whisperings, 
and heartburnings, here and there and every- 
where, and hopes for the future, and every 
plan that man could devise would be gone 
over to hit on some means to overthrow the 
common enemy. Why? Because England 
and the English people would want to have 
their own again, would want to have sole 
charge of their own affairs, and guide their 
own destinies, and justly so, too, for the En- 
glish people tell us that England has a great 
and glorious history back of her running down 
the centuries for a thousand years or more. 
And this is her inheritance, her pride and her 
glory, and she would naturally want it con- 
tinued till time should be no more. There 
is not a single argument that can be made for 
England along these lines, not one that can 
be used for continuing her national existence, 
but can be made with equal force, and justice, 
for Ireland's national life. 



Chapter XVII 
IRELAND AN ANCIENT NATION. 

Ours is an ancient nation, one of the oldest 
in the world; not like the mushroom nations 
of today. Most of these are belted and armed 
ready to plunder and seize any country too 
weak to resist. The height of their ambition 
seems to be to sweep down on any territory 
or people, despoil them of land and liberty, 
wherever possible, and without any regard 
whatever for the moral aspects of such pro- 
ceedings or the rights of the people con- 
cerned. 

Our annals show the antiquity of the nation 
and tell us that our ancient Gaelic laws, com- 
monly called the" Brehon laws, were codified, 
not newly made, in the year of Our Lord 438 
when Laeghaire (pronounced Leary) was 
Ardrig of Erin, monarch of the whole country, 
and the work was begun in the fourth year of 
his reign, which would make it the year 438 
of the Christian Era, or just six years after 
the arrival of St. Patrick in Ireland. 

This great work was finished in 441, when 
Theodosius the Second was emperor of the 
Roman world; and that these laws had come 
down from time immemorial. The laws they 
tell * us, were revised at the request of St. 
Patrick, in order to purge them of anything 
opposed to faith and morality, and that the 
revision was made by nine persons, whose 
names are given; three kings, three bishops, 

188 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 189 

and three shanachus or historians, the work 
being presumably done by the latter ; and that 
it was finished in A. D. 441. The point to 
which I want to call the reader's special 
attention is this: In the introduction to the 
shanachus Mor, or The Great Law it is stated : 
"Now, the judgment of true nature, which 
the Holy Spirit had spoken through the mouth 
of the brehon, judges, and just poets, of 
the men of Erin, from the first occupation 
of the island down to the reception of the 
Faith, were shown by Dubhthach (Doovah), 
to St. Patrick. What did not clash with the 
word of God, in the written law, and with 
the New Testament, and with the conscience 
of believers, was confirmed in the laws of the 
brehons, by the ecclesiastics and great men 
of Erin; for the law of nature was quite right 
except with regard to faith and its obligations, 
and the harmony of the Church of the people. 

Almost all the ancient Gaelic laws had 
reached their full proportions and maturity 
about the time that Alfred of England was 
reducing to order the few scraps of elementary 
law he found among his oeople. 

From the above extract found in the in- 
troduction to the Brehon laws, and written 
by one of its ancient revisers, it is seen that 
these laws had come down from the time of 
the first occupation of the island. 

Compare this antiquity with that of the 
English law, which we first find merging into 
light in the time of Alfred, towards the end of 
the ninth century. 



190 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

Alfred the Great himself, as is admitted 
by most students of ancient history, was 
educated in Ireland, as were nearly all the 
children of English nobility at the time, as 
well as those from the Continental countries, 
for Ireland was, in the time of Alfred, and for 
centuries before and after, the " Island of 
saints and scholars," the one great 
nursery of learning and sanctity, the 
one country which kept the torch of 
civilization burning during the overthrow of 
the Roman Empire. 

When the English system was about be- 
ginning, the Ancient code of Erin had nearly 
reached its full maturity. Further growth 
was impossible because of the invasion and 
occupation of Ireland by the Danes, and after 
their expulsion by the coming of the Anglo- 
Normans in 1169-1172. 

The English laws were forced on the En- 
glish nation from the outside, in turn by the 
Angles, Romans, Danes and last of all, by 
the Norman French ; and none were the natural 
outgrowth of the people themselves, nor were 
they written in the English language until 
the beginning of the sixteenth century, nor 
the legal proceedings until the middle of the 
eighteenth. Thus, it is seen, both the laws 
and legal proceedings carried the badge of 
the conquerors until comparatively recent 
times. And even now the royal assent is 
given in a language never understood by En- 
glishmen. 

Irish laws, on the contrary, not being im- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 191 

posed by any outside despot, or conqueror, 
not given as a threat, or command, but being 
the natural outpouring of the spirit of justice, 
and equity of the nation itself, and inspired 
by the ablest, wisest and best minds among 
the people, were, as might be expected, 
written in the language of the people. The 
laws thus made were broadly just and fair 
to all interests and to all parties, and protect- 
ed every right and every interest of their 
simple lives. This is shown in many ways, 
but especially by the extraordinary tenacity 
with which the people clung to them, through 
every vicissitude; through good and evil 
report. 

A nation, with such an ancient record, with 
such a history, going back to the very dawn 
of man's earthly existence, surely should have 
some right to a national and independent 
life. If it be said, as it may, that Ireland has 
cut no great figure of late, made no great con- 
quest by land or sea, in war or in commerce, 
that she is not great in the sense of having 
overthrown kingdoms and empires, and de- 
stroyed millions of human lives, I answer — all 
this is true, there is no blood of murdered 
nations on her hands, there are no monuments 
erected to her glory built on the disgrace, the 
sufferings, and the humiliations of murdered 
peoples. Ireland can hold her head high, for 
she has always been, since she accepted the 
Gospel, the standard bearer of true civiliza- 
tion, of liberty, of peace and good will, of 
fair play and honest dealing among nations. 



1 92 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

We can say of Ireland in the words of the 
late lamented, John Boyle O'Reilly: — 

Island of Destiny, Innisfail, for thy faith is 
thy payment near, 

The mine of the future is opened and the 
golden veins appear: 

Thy hands are white, and thy page unstained ; 

Reach out for thy glorious years, 

And take them, as a recompense for thy forti- 
tude and tears. 

Ireland's ideals, are so different from those 
of the great modern nations of today that it 
is difficult and almost impossible to form 
comparisons between them. The nations 
nowadays are drunk with lust of conquest, 
which they call civilization, and of plunder 
which they call commerce and trade. The 
blood of the weaker peoples, is on their hands, 
the blood of all the just upon the earth, and 
is crying to heaven for vegeance. In the 
ancient days, when Ireland was mistress of 
her own destinies, in the times of her glory, 
she sought to protect the weak to instruct all, 
and to cultivate the arts of peace. 

The following extracts from a lecture deliv- 
ered in N. Y. City, on St. Patrick's day, by 
the Rev. T. J. Shealy, S. J., eloquently des- 
cribes the ideals by which Ireland was govern- 
ed, in the past and will be again with the 
blessing of Heaven in the future, as soon as 
she is allowed to have charge of her own 
affairs: — 




JOHN O'CALLAGHAN 
Late National Secretary, U. I. L. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 1 93 

"The ideal of a nation may be military 
glory and the feats that are writ in blood, 
whose emblem of strength is the 
sword, and the ravenous beast the 
symbol of victory," said Rev. T. J. 
Shealy, S. J., in his Carnegie Hall address. 

"It may be the glory of art and the 
splendor of form which exults in the 
creations of beauty and worships at 
their shrine, and it may be the idea of 
wealth and commerce which spreads a 
table to fortune and gives to Mammon 
the keys of the city." 

"The one attribute preeminent in the 
Celt, in the olden time and in the new, 
in all the dramatic changes in fair and 
adverse fortune, in all the strain and 
struggle of a marvelous if inscrutable his- 
tory, is his supersensuous aspiration, his 
spiritual mindedness. Whatever be his 
shortcomings or virtues, the Celt stands 
amongst the races of the world for the 
things of the spirit. This constitutes his 
sovereign dignity and resource. It is 
the power by which he has become a 
mighty leaven, a vitalizing force in civil- 
ization. By virtue of such an ideal he 
labored and battled. For it he suffered 
and died. In it and by it he triumphs 
even in his failures. 

"What a leavening and counteracting 
influence such a race of spiritual and moral 
power has had upon our modern age 
proud with the dogmatism of physical 



194 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

science, sick and feverish with the ab- 
sorbing and unfortunate demands for 
physical comfort, and mad with every 
passion of eye and ear in the vaudeville 
of fashion and folly. 

"We need the Celtic mind, quick with 
spiritual discernment and the Celtic heart, 
instinct with spiritual power and sugges- 
tion. The Celt is a wanderer in the world 
but all his way is marked by the asser- 
tion and vindication of the things of the 
spirit. He is an apostle of the Evangel 
of Christ in all the earth. He has made 
the world brighter, happier, warmer, for 
his passing through. America could ill 
afford to be without his genial, generous 
fellowship and inspiration." 

"With the graphic words of one who 
knew whereof he spoke, Father Shealy 
depicted the courageous efforts of the 
Irish people in preserving their faith and 
maintaining their system of moral and 
religious education in the face of century- 
long oppression." 

"There is another marked character- 
istic of Ireland's idealism," he continued 
"one of the deepest and oldest ideals in her 
unbroken life. I mean her impassioned 
love of freedom, her indomitable spirit 
of nationality, her chivalrous devotion to 
the cause of patriotism and human rights. 
She is called a land of failures. Failures 
if you will — but glorious failures. What 
is national failure? Is it poverty — 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 195 

suffering — the desecrated shrine — the dis- 
mantled halls of princely chief? 

"No; these are ruins, not failures. The 
one awful failure to a nation is to fall 
from her ideals, to give up striving, to 
sell her soul to power and avarice or 
aught that serves the sordid sway of 
pride and passion. That, indeed, is fail- 
ure which succeeds at the price of virtue 
and honor. Ireland might have been 
rich and favored. She might have merged 
her identity and her faith in an alien 
empire and alien worship. But she 
fought and died; she starved and agon- 
ized; and in defeat she has conquered. 
Her spirit still lives on. 

"If the Gael is the martyr and the 
inspiration of civil liberty, he is no less 
the martyr and champion of social and 
economic liberty. He led the way in the 
industrial awakening, for there was a 
social question in the world long before 
the doctrinaires of exploitation injected 
their sophistries into the field of labor. 
There was a social question in Ireland, 
not inspired by the Marxian gospel of 
values and atheism, but by the natural, 
inherent, inalienable, and therefore God- 
given rights of man." 



Chapter XVIII 

IRELAND THE CHRISTIANIZER 
AND CIVILIZER 

Ireland as a nation and free to act for her- 
self, was constructive, and sought to save, to 
build up; and not to pull down, to rend, to 
destroy, as do the nations of today. During 
the overthrow of the Roman Empire, when 
the great barbarous hordes poured forth from 
the northern forests, resolved to destroy every- 
thing that men prize, all that goes to constitute 
society, learning, arts, science, literature, in a 
word, civilization, and Christianity, Ireland, 
through her great army of Christian mission- 
aries, came to the rescue and saved the world 
from its wouldbe destroyers, by conquering 
the conquerors, by christianizing and civil- 
izing them. 

And thus the Christian world became more 
indebted to Ireland than it can well realize 
today ; owes her more than it can ever repay. 

At this most critical moment, when all 
the priceless heirlooms and treasures of the 
ancient world were threatened with destruc- 
tion, when war, strife, rapine and bloodshed 
raged throughout almost the whole of the 
then known world, the Christian missionaries, 
mostly monks of the different religious orders, 
came to the rescue and saved the world and 
its people. 

And among the earliest and most zealous 
as well as most numerous of these mission- 

196 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 197 

aries were hosts of Irish monks, as stated by 
the famous French writer, Montalembert, 
in his Monks of the West. 

This great missionary movement began 
about the commencement of the sixth century, 
and continued with increasing numbers and 
force until about the middle of the tenth 
century, and with lessening numbers for some 
time longer. 

These champions of the cross spread them- 
selves throughout the whole of the known 
world, and many think they even reached 
America with St. Brendan and his follow- 
ers. So numerous and so zealous were they 
that the Protestant writer, Carl Zimmer, in 
his work "The Celtic Element in Medieval 
Civilization" says: They were the principal 
and almost sole agents for the rechristianizing 
and re-civilizing of practically the whole of 
Europe, but particularly the following coun- 
tries: — France, Italy. Switzerland, Germany, 
parts of Hungary, Holland, Poland, Russia, 
Sweden, the Feroe Islands, North of England, 
Scotland, Wales and Iceland. 

So great was the work of these missionaries 
that Zimmer gives us to understand most of 
the great ancient seats of learning on the con- 
tinent of Europe were establishecd by them, 
as were those in England, among the latter 
being Malmsbury, Lindisfarme and Melrose. 

Perhaps I can give the reader a better idea 
of Ireland's glorious work for true civilization 
and for man's real uplift in those far off times, 
by an extract from a speech delivered a short 



1 98 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE. 

time ago by the late Cardianl Moran, of 
Australia: — 

THE MIRACLE OF IRELAND. 

"The other day," said the late Car- 
dinal Moran, "I read in a discussion the 
remarks made by an Englishman, and a 
member of Parliament, who said: 'Ireland 
is a miracle!" That was a short phrase; 
still it was very emphatic, and one that 
could not be excelled. In the first place, 
Ireland was a miracle by the fact of the 
apostolate of St. Patrick, who in his short 
life gathered the whole of the country 
into the field of the Catholic Church. A 
second feature was the fact that Ireland 
was a sanctuary of enlightenment and 
divine truth, and its people became so 
enthusiastic in the paths of virtue that 
Ireland became known as the Isle of 
Saints." 

"Another feature was the wonderful 
missionary spirit which led the sons of 
Ireland to the various countries of Europe 
overrun by barbarians, there to spread 
the blessing's of enlightenment and relig- 
ion, and to give to those nations true 
Christian civilization. Then came the 
miracle of Job. They had read of that 
great patriarch, who in the midst of 
his prosperity had been reduced to the 
greatest sufferings and humiliations, and 
yet submitted to God's will. So, too, in 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 199 

Ireland, after three centuries of English 
invasion and persecution, Ireland re- 
tained its faith and devotion to God. 
That was its fourth feature. " 

"A fifth feature of the miracle was the 
heroism and devotion of the martyrs of 
Ireland, which could not be surpassed. 
And the sixth feature was more remark- 
able. It was Ireland coming forth from 
the tomb. During the past hundred 
years, Ireland had laid aside its sorrows 
to rejoice in the path of piety and faith, 
to spread out in every country the bless- 
ings of religion. Any one who looked 
forward to decay of the Irish race 
would look in vain. It was an old saying 
that St. Patrick had prayed that the 
Irish race would retain its faith to the 
last day of Judgment, and I may tell 
my good friends here that when they see 
the traditions of the Irish race beginning 
to decay, they may look out for a safe 
spot, as the end of the world is coming." 



Ireland has been so long maligned, slan- 
dered and misrepresented in every way so per- 
sistently trampled en and thrown aside from 
the pathway of the nations, by those who had 
an interest in thus treating her, that people 
nowadays, even some of her own, find all this 
hard to believe, and almost incredible, but 
it is true nevertheless, and well known to 
students of history. 

While her sons were thus engaged abroad, 



200 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

planting the seeds of religion and civilization, 
Ireland herself had become the great sanctuary 
for all the learning of the times, the one oasis 
in those disturbed and troublesome periods 
where civilization found a home and refuge. 

For many reasons Ireland was especially 
fitted for the great work she was engaged in, 
both at home and abroad. A Roman soldier 
had never trodden on her soil. She was far 
removed from the theatre of bloodshed and 
strife, and after receiving Christianity from 
St. Patrick in 432, began at once to cultivate 
the arts of peace, and gradually established 
great universities everywhere throughout the 
land, and to these schools flocked the students, 
not only from all parts of Europe, but from 
countries as far distant as Egypt. All were 
received with open arms, and were fed, housed 
and clothed free of charge ;in a word, provided 
for them in every way, and were instructed 
in all the learning of the times, and by the 
ablest masters to be found. Oh! how are the 
mighty fallen ! when the country that conferred 
such blessings and benefits on the world, 
and at a time when such were sorely needed, 
is now given little or no credit for her then 
great work, and was until lately spoken of 
only to be flouted and jeered at. Perhaps 
it is too much to expect gratitude from nations 
any more than from individuals, at any rate 
it is not always forthcoming. I may say here, 
however, that Ireland is just now more con- 
cerned about justice than gratitude, and 
needs it more. And the truest form of jus- 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 201 

tice is to let her have "her own again," to 
give her charge of her own affairs. 

That she might make mistakes and blunders 
here and there, and at times make false steps, 
goes without saying. If indeed she commits 
no crime against her own people, or her sister 
nations, she will be far ahead of others that 
have had long experience of self-government 
and will have much cleaner hands! 



Chapter XIX. 
THE DAWNING OF LIBERTY. 

Like individuals, most nations during their 
lives do make mistakes, not only at the 
beginning, but all through their lives. En- 
gland has surely made her share. Not to go too 
far back, — her war against the Americans was 
not only a blunder, but a huge crime, and is so 
admitted by practically all Englishmen to- 
day, as shown by the effort now being made 
to erect a monument to Washington in En- 
gland. 

Her whole history in Ireland is one long 
series of crimes and blunders, each series 
worse than the other. 

And Mr. Brooks admits it, as do all fair- 
minded and reasonable men. Ireland could not 
possibly do worse for herself in the way of 
self-government than England has done for 
her. Any change must be for the better, 
none could be for the worse. 

She could, and would, deal justly and fairly 
with all her own people of every class and 
creed, notwithstanding what Orange bigots 
say to the contrary. 

In the bloody chasm of the past she would 
bury the old time enmities, hatreds, and heart- 
burnings, and so let the dead past bury its 
dead. She would encourage her own trade, 
what little there is left of it, develop her great 
natural resources, open up her mines, improve 
her fine and commodious harbors, among the 

202 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 203 

finest in the world, and which are now largely 
idle. 

Thus the sunshine of hope and cheer and 
encouragement would displace the clouds of 
sullen discontent which have until now, like 
a pall, covered the land and people. 

She would then take her rightful place in 
the world, she would become a leader in 
everything that is noble, just and true; in 
short, she would renew her youth, and again 
teach the nations, as of old, that might is not 
necessarily right, and that truth and liberty 
and justice are still worth striving for. 

I fully realize that these sentiments will 
be regarded as the supremest folly by many 
people, by all those, in fact, who believe the 
end justifies the means, especially where there 
is no punishment in sight, and among them 
I may mention those statesmen who shape 
the policies of nations, and particularly those 
nations that ride roughshod over the lives 
and liberties of the weaker peoples of the world, 
as if the moral law were blotted out of the 
universe, and right and wrong were unknown. 

Ireland can truly say of herself with the 
poet : — 

What stronger breastplate than a heart un- 
tainted? 
Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just; 
And but naked, though locked in steel, 
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. 

Just now new life is springing up in the Old 
Land, and new energy born of the hope that 
she will soon have Home Rule, that she will 



204 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

be a nation once more. The land is com- 
ing back to its rightful owners; it is, in fact, 
almost theirs already, and will be entirely 
in their possession within fifteen or twenty 
years. 

What a glorious prospect for Ireland, after 
she has trodden the winepress alone for so 
many centuries, derided scourged, and cru- 
cified, and now triumphant! 

And her ancient language, too, though not 
receiving the encouragement it should from 
the powers that be, is not laughed to scorn 
and flouted as of old, nor is it now a crime to 
speak it, as it was in times not very remote. 

In spite of many obstacles in its path, it 
is making its way into the hearts and affec- 
tions of its people, and teaching them to ex- 
press themselves along the lines of their 
hereditary genius. Later on, it may help to 
bar out the immense mass of vile literature, so 
called, that is flooding the world at the present 
time. 

The Irish language is the outgrowth of a 
simple, primitive people, whose ideals all 
tend to the spiritual side of man, towards the 
higher things of life. 

The tongue of Conn, of Finn, and of Ossian, 
of Brian, Patrick, and Bridget, the tongue of 
our warriors, our saints, and our sages as 
well as our free born sires, is still with us, 
to sooth, to charm, to cheer, and enliven us. 

The language of a nation is its true soul, 
and, this gone, its real national life is departed. 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 205 

But the old tongue is not dead, though every- 
thing that wealth and power and human in- 
genuity could do were resorted to in order 
to kill it, but in spite of all it has survived 
somehow, as has the nation that gave it 
birth, and is coming back to its own again, 
and with it are coming, too, Irish music, folk- 
lore, traditions, sports, pastimes, and last, but 
by no means least, Irish history. For Ire- 
land has a history, let it not be forgotten, 
that would put to shame some of those nations 
that now lord it over the world. She was old 
and great before many of them were born, 
as I have shown elsewhere, and as she was 
present at their cradles she will in all probabil- 
ity see many of them buried. 

She is arising from the ashes of her desola- 
tion, to take her rightful place in the world, 
a place from which she has long been a stran- 
ger, so long that her name is almost forgotten, 
but she comes to it by right, but by right of 
having always been true to principle, to truth, 
and liberty. And this not only in Ireland 
itself, but everywhere around the world 
where liberty and justice were assailed and 
needed a champion. Had Ireland temporized, 
had she gene in for expediency, had she sacri- 
ficed principle, she might have feasted sump- 
tuously every day, and at the tables of kings, 
but she preferred righteousness, truth and 
honor to everything else, and as a consequence 
she has been thrust out into the cold, beaten 
and trampled on, her nationality almost 
blotted out, her faith, her language, her learn- 



206 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

ing banned, her teachers exiled, under penalty 
of death, her history, traditions, her music, 
and everything she held dear, derided, scoffed 
and jeered at. And yet, miracle of the ages! 
she has survived. How? and why? God 
alone knows, for there is a divinity that shapes 
the ends of nations, as well as those of indi- 
viduals. It is not given to us to penetrate 
the designs of Providence, but it does seem 
to be reasonably sure that the preservation 
of Ireland, under such long continued adverse 
circumstances, is that she may serve some use- 
ful purpose among the nations. And it goes 
without saying, this can best be done by allow- 
ing her to work out her own salvation in her 
own way, and without let or hindrance from 
any other quarter. 

If this be thought too impractical in this 
very practical age, I may remind the reader 
that all the great reforms, all the mighty 
achievements of the ages, were regarded by 
those who opposed them, by nearly all the 
people at the times as being impractical. 
The independence and self-government of the 
American colonies were most impractical 
and chimerical to the English of the times 
and were to them, in fact, the sheerest folly 
which must surely end, and that very soon, 
in the total destruction of the Colonial gov- 
ernment, and by their own people, as soon 
as they had come to their senses, which would 
be very soon. And so too, the freeing of the 
slaves by the proclamation of President 
Lincoln during the Civil war. And so it 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 207 

goes; everything calculated to benefit men, 
or nations, is opposed by those whose inter- 
ests are threatened or endangered. Ireland, 
having been thrust aside from among the 
nations, is now coming to the front to take her 
rightful place in the family circle. It is 
quite probable that her step may be a little 
timid and faltering at first, because of her 
lack of recent experience, but with time will 
come experience, later on confidence, and 
finally success. 

The San Francisco Post well voices the 
sentiments of Irish hearts at this time, and 
says : — 

TRIUMPH OF IRISH SPIRIT. 

''With the passage of the Home Rule 
Bill by the House of Commons the in- 
domitable spirit of Irish Nationalism 
approaches a realization of centuries. 
The passage of the Bill is of world-wide 
importance, for the ubiquitous Irish popu- 
late all of the countries of the globe and 
have preserved the National instinct from 
generation to generation. Even had Ire- 
land itself been entirely depopulated of 
men and women of the Celtic race, the 
resentment against the crushing of the 
Irish race would survive in the world. It 
never could be killed. The recognition of 
its right to survive vindicates its support- 
ers and glorifies the cause. 

"There are new strings on the Harp of 
Tara. The National Melodies will sound 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

upon it again, sweetly as in the olden 
Minstrel days, and its tones will be 
stronger because of the new hope which 
was won through suffering. It will play 
upon a brighter theme, but its notes will 
always tell of patriotism that endures." 



It seems fitting and most appropriate at 
this time, when Ireland's hopes and the hopes 
of her friends are high, that I should quote, 
as a shout of joy and a new alleluia, the stirr- 
ing poem of "Erin's Flag, 1 ' by the late Rev. 
Father Abram Ryan, the poet priest of the 
South. 

ERIN'S FLAG 

Unroll Erin's flag; fling its folds to the breeze; 
Let it float o'er the land, let it flash o'er the seas; 
Lift it out of the dust! let it wave as of yore! 
When its chiefs, with their clans, stood around it 

and swore 
That never! no never! while God gave them life! 
And they had an arm, and a sword, for the strife! 
That never, no never, that banner should yield 
As long as the heart of a Celt was its shield ; 
While the hand of a Celt had a weapon to wield ! 
And his last drop of blood was unshed on the field! 

Lift it up ! wave it high ! 'tis as bright as of old ! 
Not a stain on its green ! not a blot on its gold ! 
Though the woes and the wrongs of three hundred 

long years; 
Have drenched Erin's Sunburst with blood and 

with tears, 
Though the clouds of oppression enshroud it in gloom, 
And around it the thunders of tyranny boom, 
Look aloft! Look aloft! the clouds drifting by; 
There's a gleam through the gloom; there's a light 

in the sky! 



ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 209 

Tis the sunburst resplendent, far flashing on high ! 
Erin's Dark night is waning, her day dawn is nigh. 

I can say of Ireland, with the late lamented 
John Boyle O'Reilly:— 

We have wronged no race, we have robbed no land, 
We have never oppressed the weak; 
And this, in the face of heaven, is the nobler thing 
to speak. 

Our poet, Moore, beautifully expresses 
Ireland's rising hopes, at this time, in the 
following exquisite poem: — 

THE NATIONS HAVE FALLEN 
By Thomas Moore 

The nations have fallen and thou art still young 
Thy sun is but rising, when others are set; 

And tho' slavery's cloud o'er thy morning hath hung 
The full noon of Freedom shall beam round thee yet, 

Erin, oh Erin, tho' long in the shade, 

Thy star shall shine out when the proudest shall fade. 

Unchill'd by the rain, and unwaked by the wind, 
The lily lies sleeping thro' winter's cold hour, 

Till Spring's light touch her fetters unbind, 

And daylight and Liberty bless the young flower, 

Thus Erin, oh Erin, thy winter is past, 

And the hope that lived thro' it shall blossom at last. 
And so God save Ireland! 

In closing this little tribute to Motherland 
let me say, as did the immortal Henry Grattan 
on a certain memorable occasion in the old 
Irish House of Commons: — 



210 ON THE THRESHOLD OF HOME RULE 

"I have no ambition, unless it be the 
ambition to break your chain and 
contemplate your glory. I never will 
be satisfied so long as the meanest cot- 
tager in Ireland has a link of the British 
chain clanking to his rags. He may be 
naked — he shall not be in iron. And I 
do see the time is at hand, the spirit is 
gone forth, the declaration is planted; 
and though great men should apostatize, 
yet the cause will live, and though the 
public speaker should die, yet the im- 
mortal fire shall outlast the organ which 
conveyed it, and the breath of liberty, 
like the word of the holy man, will not 
die with the prophet, but survive him." 

END. 



